Relentless(37)

I smile even though I feel uncomfortable with her request. I don’t know what she means by “when he opens his heart.” What kind of secret is Adam hiding?

Margaret and I finish up the potato salad and the coleslaw. As soon as I start piping the filling into the deviled eggs, the door bursts open and Adam flies past us toward the living room. The rage rolls off him in thunderous waves as he storms out of the kitchen.

I turn to Margaret and she quickly unties the strings on the back of my apron. “Go ahead, honey. I’ll finish this up.”

I pull the apron over my head and hand it to her then set off through the swinging door into the living room. I glimpse Adam’s feet racing up the stairs and I follow quickly behind him. When I reach Jamie’s bedroom, I find him sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on the tops of his thighs and his hands clutching his hair. He’s tapping his foot impatiently and I feel as if I’m edging closer to a ticking time bomb.

I step inside and close the bedroom door behind me. “Adam, are you okay?”

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, but he doesn’t answer.

I slowly make my way across the fluffy white rug and take a seat next to him. “I know you probably think I won’t understand because I never knew my father—I hardly knew my mother—but I have a lot of regrets, and pain, eating away at me over the separation from my last foster mother. I have a lot of things I want to say to her, but sometimes I think I could live my whole life without saying those things. And sometimes I think the secrets will kill me.”

He lifts his head and looks at me. “My dad wants me to go to Hawaii to schmooze some government officials for a new project on the naval base.”

“What’s wrong with that? Hawaii is beautiful.”

“If we get the project, I’ll have to stay there for up to two months to handle the startup.”

“Oh.” I stare at the rug on the floor because I don’t want him to see the disappointment in my eyes any more than he can see it in the slump of my shoulders.

“I’ve been trying to quit for years, but my dad won’t let me.” He gently turns my face toward him and the anguish in his eyes makes my chest ache. “Claire, there’s something you need to know about me.”

I draw in a slow breath, wishing I were at home so I could meditate. Wishing I were anywhere but here where I am about to hear a secret that may tear us apart. His mother’s words repeat in my mind: Try to keep an open mind when he opens his heart.

“When I was seventeen, my friend Myles and I went to California for a surf competition. I had been competing since I was fourteen, but it was his first competition. He was so stoked because he placed eighth, which is really good for a first-timer. Anyway, to celebrate we decided to go fuck around at a beach in Laguna. It was one of the best looking beaches I’ve ever surfed at.” He closes his eyes as if he’s picturing it in his mind. “We found a spot that looked good for diving and we took turns doing cannonballs and belly flops. Then I had the brilliant idea of jumping off backwards.”

A chill sprouts across my arms as I realize where this is going.

“He got scared and I started teasing him about it. Then we started wrestling, pretending we were gonna toss each other off the cliff. Myles foot slipped. He was so startled when he began to fall backwards that he reached for my feet and hit his head on the rocky cliffside.” He buries his face in his hands again, burying the shame. “It was my fault, but I panicked and called my dad before I called 9-1-1. My dad convinced me to say it was an accident.”

If there is one thing that will comfort Adam right now it’s for me to share my secret. It’s so obvious, but I can’t. I can’t judge him after what I’ve done, but I also can’t expect him not to judge me.

I put my hand under his chin and lift his face. His face is red and his eyes are brimming with unreleased tears. “Adam, it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. It’s not as if you pushed him off.”

“That’s not the point. The point is my father refused to let me tell the truth about Myles’ death. And now that I’m finally getting my life back together, now that I have you, he wants to take it all away.”

“You have your degree. You’re young. You’re smart. You’re good looking. You can probably work anywhere. Why do you stay there?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t you get it? The company has been in the family for more than a hundred years; started by my great-great-grandfather. Nothing is more important to my dad than the company. I can’t leave. My dad has been holding what happened with Myles over my head for more than four years.”