Spinning Out(The Blackhawk Boy #1)(60)

I guess I'm a lot like her after all.

"Dad?" I ask, nodding toward the trailer.

"I checked him into the clinic this morning. He said he wanted to be  sober and gainfully employed next time he saw you. I told him you would  be proud of him."

I stare at her-at the eyes so like the ones I see every time I look in  the mirror, at the freckles she tells me are from her German  grandmother-and I feel another piece of my safety net lock into place  beneath me. After months of walking this tightrope of my life vulnerable  and blindfolded, it's a relief. "Thank you for taking care of that."

She smiles and points to the trailer. "I made some cookies. Would you  like to come in and have a couple? I'd love to talk more." She shifts  and wrings her hands in front of her. "I'd really, really like to know  about your life. More than you tell me in a ten-minute phone call."                       
       
           



       

My heart squeezes and I take a step forward, knowing it'll be okay if I fall. "Cookies sound great."





It's hours later before they release me from the little room at the back  of the station. There were questions and more questions. There were  lectures and guilt trips. The police asked me about what I remember from  that night so many times that I'll probably be reciting it in my sleep.

They made Mia and Bailey go home. I'm told that at one point, Chris and  Mason showed up to give statements of their own about that night, but  they were gone before I finished.

Dad came with his lawyer, and they got filled in on everything. The look  on his face when he realized I hadn't been driving, that I wasn't about  to face years in prison . . . it was good for me to see. He has trouble  talking through his feelings, but his expression in that moment told me  everything I need to know.

"Can I go home now?" I ask on my way back up front.

The officer who's spent most of his day with me nods. "If you want. But  if you're willing, Mr. Wright has asked to have a few words with you."

I stop in the middle of the hallway.

"He's in there," the officer says, pointing to another room.

All this time, I'd valued Coach more than my own damn father. But today I  learned which of the two really puts me first. "No thanks," I say. "If  that's okay, I'd rather not talk to him right now."

"Not a problem," the officer says. "It's understandable."

"Thank you."

I leave the station, climb into my car, and drive home.

It's surreal, driving home when you thought you'd be spending the night  in jail, and as betrayed as I feel over what Coach did to me, that's  nothing compared to the weight that's been lifted from my shoulders. My  albatross thrown into the sea.

When I pull into the drive, Chris's car is parked up front beside  Mason's. For almost five months, I've prepared myself to lose my friends  if the truth ever came out. Today, even when Trish confessed and  explained I wasn't at fault, I still wasn't sure how they'd feel. But  here they are, letting me know before I can even worry about it that  they've got my back.

I find the two of them in the living room huddled in front of the television.

Mason grabs the remote and turns up the volume. "Coach is about to give a press conference."

Dad walks into the room from the kitchen. He looks to the screen and then to me before coming to stand by my side.

It's a live feed from in front of the courthouse, and Coach Wright steps in front of the microphone.

"Today," Coach says into the microphone, "I'm officially resigning from  my position as the head coach of the Blackhawk Hills University football  team. It's a position I've been proud to hold and a group of young men  I've been blessed to lead, but I'm no longer fit to be their guide." He  unfolds a piece of paper and smooths it flat on the podium. "On New  Year's Eve, I got the phone call every father fears. My daughter had  been in a terrible accident." He swallows hard. "But the difference  between my call and the one Mr. Mendez and Mr. and Mrs. Barrett were  getting around the same time was that my daughter was okay. She was  physically unharmed. And she was home-calling me from the front yard  where she'd parked my SUV."

Dad puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes, and I'm so damn grateful  to have him here by my side. I take a deep breath and listen to what the  coach has to say.

"She was in a panic because she'd hit two boys on Deadman's Curve. Every  father wants to believe he'll do the right thing faced with a moment  like that one. And I told myself, as I went outside and pulled her out  of the car, that I was doing the right thing."

"Like hell you were," Chris mutters from the couch.

"She'd been drinking," Coach continues. "She shouldn't have been driving. But I knew what she'd face if she turned herself in.

"Her friend Arrow Woodison was passed out in the passenger seat. In a  misplaced sense of fatherly duty, I decided I'd cover up what my  daughter had done, but I had a choice to make about Arrow. To further  remove my daughter from the crime, I pulled him into the driver's seat  and let him stay there for almost two hours before I woke him and told  him he'd driven there. I proceeded to take a series of steps to cover up  my daughter's crime. I shot a deer and smeared its blood on the damaged  front end of my car, then called the police to file a report that I hit  the animal to explain the damage to my Cherokee." He draws in a long,  slow, ragged breath and lifts his tired and tormented eyes to the  camera. "And when Arrow woke up, I told him he'd been driving the car  that hit those boys."                       
       
           



       

A barrage of questions surge from the audience and his pause is filled with the click click click of cameras.

Mason looks over his shoulder at me and my dad. "I can't believe he's saying all this in a press conference."

"I'm sure his lawyer is shitting himself," Dad says.

"Why not just say he's stepping down and be done with it?" Mason asks.

Drawing in a long breath, Chris looks at Mason, then steadies his gaze on me. "Maybe he needed to be heard. I think it's brave."

Coach starts speaking again, and we return our attention to the  television. "I committed a horrible crime when I covered up what my  daughter did. And I knew I'd have to live with that. What I wasn't  prepared for was to live with the guilt of two young people who'd have  each done the right thing had I not been there steering them in the  wrong direction. I watched my daughter turn into an alcoholic, a cutter,  a young woman who'd rather experiment with drugs than live in the moral  hell I'd trapped her in."

"Jesus," Mason whispers. "I didn't know she'd gotten that bad."

"We didn't want to see what we didn't understand," Chris says. He shifts  his gaze to me and grimaces. "And that goes beyond Trish."

Coach takes a long, deep breath. He looks like he might disintegrate  into tears at any moment. "I watched Arrow Woodison, a man who was like a  son to me, take up drinking and drugs and throw away his football  career while he tried to punish himself for a crime he didn't commit."  He wipes the tears off his cheeks. "When you make a decision like that  as a father," Coach says, "you tell yourself you're acting out of love.  The truth was, I was acting out of fear. I was afraid for my daughter,  and I was afraid for myself and how lonely my life would be if I lost  her. If I'd truly been acting out of love, when she called me and said,  ‘Daddy, I've been in an accident. I think I need to call the police,'  I'd have listened to what happened and agreed. Then I'd have stood by  her side while she told the truth and did what was right. But I've let  fear lead my whole life for the last four months. I can't apologize  enough for what that did to my daughter and what it did to Arrow, who  was innocent in all of this."

Dad's hand tightens on my shoulder, and I realize he too has tears  streaming down his cheeks. I wonder if he's half as overwhelmed as I am.  I'm swamped in relief-the final shackle of this hell being unlocked.

"I know an apology will never be enough," Coach says. "But I want to  give it anyway. So that when this community sees my daughter in court or  sees Arrow in the streets, they can understand the part I had to play  in all of it." Clearing his throat, he folds his paper and tucks it back  into his pocket. "That's all. Thank you."

Dad squeezes my shoulder one last time before excusing himself, and Chris and Mason turn to me.

"We should have known there was something more going on with you," Mason says, his voice thick.

"What can we do?" Chris asks.