"My father died a month before the incident. Overdose. Drugs and alcohol. He was foolish enough to steal drugs from one of the biggest drug dealers on the west coast, a guy he ran errands for or distributed drugs for in return for enough drugs and booze to feed his own habit. He rarely got paid in cash, and even if he did, he didn't use it to feed his family or his wife." His voice was low, seething with distain for the man who had fathered him. "Mom tried her best, but she had dropped out of high school and couldn't get anything but minimum wage jobs. She did whatever she could to feed us and keep dear old dad's business away from our shitty apartment and away from me and Sam. Mostly, she kept us out of trouble, making us see that we could be something more, something better." His voice cracked, his adoration for his mother evident.
Everything that Helen had told her made sense now. Helen blamed herself for not being able to give her boys a better childhood. Kara frowned as she remembered the sorrow in Helen's eyes when she had talked about her boys, their crappy childhood. Didn't Helen realize that she had given her boys something to cling to in their childhood, something they desperately needed to survive intact? Helen had given Simon and Sam love...and hope.
Simon's voice strengthened as he continued. "Rose was my childhood friend, really my only friend other than Sam. She grew up in the apartment next to ours. She was a year old than me." He shifted uncomfortably, his foot bouncing in the water as though he were nervous. "We were as close as friends can be until my hormones started to rage and I started to see her as a female. I cared about her a lot and I thought she cared about me."
"So you did have a girlfriend when you were a teenager?" She wasn't sure where he was going with his explanation, but she sensed that it was important to his history.
"Yes and no. I guess. We kissed, we held hands. I had horny, teenage-boy wet dreams about her every night. I wanted to get laid for the first time and I wasn't exactly an attractive teenager. I was quiet and skinny, not much to look at. Clumsy as hell. I read a lot. Mom made sure Sam and I had books from the library or reading programs. But Rose seemed to like me even though I was a gawky, ugly kid."
Kara's heart contracted, trying to picture a young, awkward teenage Simon. She was willing to bet her nursing career that he had been adorable.
"She started changing when she turned seventeen. She dropped out of school, started hanging with my father's crowd, wouldn't talk to me anymore or was so distant that she acted like I was nobody."
She squeezed his hands. "That must have hurt."
"It did." He didn't bother to deny it. "I knew she was using, stoned out of her mind most of the time. I begged her to let me help her, but she wouldn't listen. She just laughed in my face, saying that there was nothing I could do because I was as poor as she was. And she was right, damn it! But I wanted to help her get clean. And stop working the streets."
"She became a prostitute?" Oh God, poor Simon.
She couldn't see him, but she felt his shoulders lift in a shrug. "She had to pay for her habit somehow and I know she gave some of the money to her mom to help her younger brother."
"You didn't give up, did you?" Kara didn't need an answer. She already knew. Simon was stubborn and tenacious, his rescuer tendencies still alive and well. It wasn't in his nature to stop trying.
"No. I wanted to believe that the Rose I knew was still inside of her, waiting to come out again." He snorted. "It didn't matter how many times she tried to avoid me or told me fuck off, I still tried. I was pretty naive, I guess."
No, you weren't. You were good, even though life had dealt you a crappy beginning. You were a dreamer who wanted to believe that everyone could be saved. You must have been as guileless, honest and direct as you are now. You just didn't hide it as well then.
"Having hope doesn't make you naive, Simon."
He laughed, but it was self-deprecating. "I was gullible. I didn't see her for about a month after my father died. Then one night, she showed up at our apartment, dressed in a short sexy skirt and a friendly smile. For a teenage male virgin...that was all it took for me. Mom was working and Sam had already gone to Florida to start a construction job there. I was getting ready to graduate from high school and Sam had made enough money working construction to bring us to Florida to join him."
"You were graduating from high school at the age of sixteen?"
"I skipped a grade. Twice. School was never difficult for me." He answered in a sheepish voice, like the fact that he was smart embarrassed him.
Why was she not surprised that he was a boy genius too? "So, what happened after she came in?"
"She came on to me hot and heavy. I responded like a sixteen-year-old who had never gotten laid. She had me in my bedroom within minutes. She was experienced and I let her take the lead. She opened my fly and had my dick out of pants and a condom on me, before I really knew what was happening." He laughed, but there was no humor in the hollow sound. "Not that I would have objected. I had a beautiful woman above me, ready to fuck me senseless. I was a teenager in complete ecstasy."
Oh. Dear. God.
Kara bit back a horrified gasp. Her suspicions had to be wrong. It couldn't have happened that way.
"She had the knife hidden in her bra." His voice trembled.
She wasn't wrong, and the nausea started to rise in her throat.
"So there I was, getting my first fuck, drowning in erotic bliss, never once thinking that there was something strange about the whole situation. She grabbed the knife and started stabbing the moment I started to come. It took me by surprise. She had stabbed me so many times before I realized what was happening that I didn't have a chance to defend myself." His chest was heaving, his voice strangled and raw.
Kara's whole body quivering with emotion, she turned in his arms, straddled his thighs and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Why?" she asked, her question coming in a short sob. "Why would she do that?" Burying her face in his neck, she let her tears flow unchecked down her face. All she could think about was the vulnerable teenage Simon, lying in a pool of blood, dying, just because he was a hormonal, typical young man.
Wrapping his arms tightly around her, he answered in a graveled voice, "Revenge. My father died before he could be punished for stealing from a powerful boss in an organized and huge cartel. The organization was sending a message, letting people know what happens to a person or their family if they try to steal from them. They couldn't let my father's bad deed go unpunished. He died before they could send that message. I was just a substitute."
"But why Rose?"
"The boss knew we had been friends since childhood. Her loyalty was being tested. She was pretty deeply involved in the organization. They threatened to kill her mother and brother if she didn't kill me." Surprisingly, there was no bitterness in his voice.
Shaken to the depths of her soul, she choked out, "Is she in jail?"
"She's dead." His voice was flat. "She fled as soon as I passed out from blood loss, obviously convinced that I was a goner. She went straight to an alley, took a lethal amount of drugs and slit her wrists with the same knife she used to stab me. They found a suicide note and her confession in her pocket. She begged forgiveness from both her mother and mine, saying that she had to protect her family. She never knew that I survived. Mom came home a few minutes later and found me. If she hadn't, I would have been dead."
Unable to contain her horror, she sobbed into Simon's neck, crying for all of the pain that he had suffered, both emotionally and physically. How did one survive a betrayal like that? Especially by a friend, a woman he had adored. "I'm so sorry."
"Why?" he asked, sounding perplexed. "You didn't stab me." He rubbed his hand up and down her back. "Don't cry. I don't like it." His voice was demanding, but he rested his head against hers, his touch on her back gentle and comforting.
A sad smile crossed her lips as she tried to rein in her emotions. His comment was so...Simon. He had no idea why she was crying for him, why she hurt for him. Being loved by anyone other than his family was completely alien to him. "Tell me about your injuries?"