She Used to Be the Sweetest Girl(61)

“I’m sorry, and I mean that from the heart Brix. I’m sorry for leaving you and not being the man you needed me to be, but you gotta understand—”

“Understand what Drew! You keep saying that but you’re not saying anything. I swear if the next words that spew from your mouth aren’t a real explanation, I’m leaving and for good this time,” Brix hissed.

Shaking his head, Drew took a sip from his glass. It was now or never.

“I uh. I know who killed your dad.”

As if the forces of gravity swept through the house, Brix chair flew back against the wall, as she jumped from her seat. Placing a trembling hand over her mouth, she was petrified to speak another word. Shaking her head frantically, she backed up into the china glass cabinet. It was as if she needed to be far away from the words he just spoke. Rocking back and forth, Brix mumbled the word no over and over with her eyes closed. The same nightmare she always had, was now déjà vu.

Looking on with sorrow written all over his face, Drew cursed under his breath. The words were true, but there was more. So much more needed to be said so that he could lift the burden from his chest. Standing up, he walked over to a shaking Brix. Not knowing if he should pull her in for a hug or just stand there, the choice was made for him when she held her arm out to stop him from coming any closer.

“No, no. Just go away! I don’t want to hear any more,” she cried, with tears rolling down her face.

Seeing her tears weakened Drew. Against her protest, he pulled her into his chest. Brix fussed and screamed for him to let her go, but he wasn’t having it. He needed to tell her the whole truth so she could get past this.

“I’m not letting you go until you calm down and listen to me alright. If I let you go, can you just listen?”

Brix didn’t even give a head nod. Her body was stricken with fear and hurt. Slowly removing his hold on her, she backed away. Wiping her face, she braced herself for whatever he was going to say next. It couldn’t have been much worse than what he already said, so she waited with listening ears.

“Just promise me you’ll try to understand my side of things and let me finish,” he said.

Brix just blinked her eyes. Figuring he wouldn’t get a reply, Drew continued.

“Alright. So me and Nine was leaving the bar one night. We were fucked up. Like we shouldn’t have been operating a vehicle at all. Nine claimed he could drive better when he was drunk than sober, and you know, I’m always up for some daredevil shit. Nothing bad had ever happened with us driving drunk before, so I figured we’d be cool. He was driving cool at first, and there weren’t many cars out so he was flying. We weren’t taking the highways so he was doing about seventy on the backstreets. I tried to get him to slow down, but he wasn’t listening. When he did finally decide to bring his speed down, it was too late.”

He stopped to prepare himself for the heart-wrenching truth. Brix’s chest was heaving up and down, but she had to know. The details of it all sounded way too familiar. Taking a deep breath, Drew began again.

“There was only one other car on the road with us when he lost control of the wheel. The other driver didn’t have a chance to even react. Next thing I know, I’m pulling my head up from the airbag. What seemed like hours, was only a couple of minutes. We had crashed directly into the driver’s side of the other vehicle. Even though I was fucked up, I sobered up quick as hell. I hopped out to check on the other car, but when I got to the window—”

He stopped to swallow the lump in his throat.

“I saw who it was and froze up. I knew right away that your dad was gone. I checked his pulse to make sure and I was right. The impact of the crash was directly on his side and he was bleeding like crazy from a gash in his stomach. Your mom was on the passenger side unconscious, but her pulse was light. I knew she had a chance of living. Panicking, I ran back to the car and told Nine to pull off. I couldn’t go to jail for murder. I did dial 911 from his Trac phone, but we had to get up out of there. That same night, after we left the scene, we packed up some of our things and moved to Arizona. His truck was damaged, but it was still working. I know what we did is wrong. It was dead wrong, Brix, and if you never forgive me, I can’t blame you. That’s why I left and stayed away for so long like I did.”

Anger resonated in Brix’s body before he even finished telling the horrible truth. How could he? That’s the only question that kept replaying in her head. With the strength she had left, Brix lifted her hand and smacked the shit out of him. The palm of her hand against his cheek, sounded off, making his light skin turn a light red shade immediately. Before Drew could realize what happened, she smacked him again before pushing him in the chest with all her might. Grabbing her purse from the table, she practically sprinted to his front door. After two years of waiting, she couldn’t fathom that this, the death of her daddy, of all things was why he left. Him telling the truth didn’t cure her aching heart. To her, he could have honestly stayed away forever and she would have been just fine.