“One that we kept for twenty years.”

  “It grew on me.”

  “You loved it.”

  I lean down and kiss his hand. “John?”

  “Yeah?”

  I take a deep breath and let it out slow. I have to tell him before it’s too late. “You remember when you didn’t show up to school that one day? We were sixteen and—”

  “Oh yeah. I was hurtin’, huh?”

  “Yeah. Because of what he did to you.”

  He chuckles. “Never seen you so angry. You were spittin’ at me.”

  “Someone had to. Someone had to keep you safe.”

  He watches me. “And you did, didn’t you? You kept me safe. You did what no one else could. Didn’t you?”

  I look down at our hands, unable to meet his eyes. I know what he’s asking me, but I don’t know if I have the courage to say it, even after all these years. Part of me knows he understands what I did to keep him safe, but it hasn’t been something I’ve wanted to think about. “John….”

  “Tell me. Tell me, Jackie. Tell me before the sun goes down. I know what happened. I know what you did, but you tell me. Tell me how much you love me.” There’s no anger in his voice, no recrimination. There’s only understanding, as there’s always been.

  And of course he knows. Of course he knows what I did. How far I went to make sure no one could ever harm him again. How I never once worried about my own mortal soul, only his mortal life. We’d never talked about it, but he knew just the same.

  John Kemp knows everything about me. But he needs to hear my confession, just the same. I have to say it, before I can’t.

  Bowing my head, I confess the depths of my love for him.

  Six

  Thou Shalt Not Kill

  I knew something was wrong when John didn’t meet me in front of the school like he always did. Rain or shine, in sickness or in health, John was there in front of the school, sitting on the curb, waiting for me. He always arrived first, no matter how early I got there. I asked him once how he was always able to beat me, and he’d just shrugged at me, saying I was a slowpoke.

  It wouldn’t be until years later that I’d find out John would often leave his house at three or four in the morning, doing his homework in front of the school by streetlight or moonlight. He couldn’t do it when he got home. There were chores to be done. There were beatings to be suffered.

  But I didn’t know that on this day. All I knew was that for the first time since I’d known him, John wasn’t there.

  I tried to push it away, knowing there was a first time for everything. Maybe he was just running late. Maybe he was really sick and had to stay home. That rational line of thinking lasted through my first class. By the time the second period rolled around, I was starting to worry. By the third, I was starting to panic. By lunch, I was sweating and planning on ditching the rest of school and riding out to his house to make sure he was okay, because I was absolutely convinced he wasn’t.

  The bell rang and I headed for the football field, pretending to go to lunch, sure I could slip out the gate there without getting caught. I’d hook around back to the side of the building and get my bike and haul ass the four miles to John’s ramshackle house. I told myself I was probably overreacting, but that did nothing to stop the dread from filling me up, unsure of what I’d find when I got out there.

  His daddy, the few times I’d seen him, scared the shit out of me. He was so big and so angry. John never really knew what happened to his mom; he’d been told only that she’d left when he was just a baby. It’d been just him and his dad as far back as he could remember. We never talked about it much, but I was sure his daddy had beat his mom enough that either he killed her and buried her body where no one would find it, or she just got fed up one day and left, leaving her son in the hands of a monster. I didn’t know which I thought was worse.

  Things weren’t always bad, John tried to tell me. His daddy was a good man, some of the time. He could be all right when he wanted to be. But it was those other times, when he was so far gone in drink, that he stopped being a good man. That he stopped being just “all right.” It was those times when he was drunk and raised his fists at John that he became a bad man.

  It was the times I’d seen John with a black eye or bruises on his chest and sides that I wanted his dad to become a dead man. There were a few times when it took all John had to hold me back from riding out to his house and kicking the shit out of his dad.

  Anger isn’t a rational thing, especially when it’s well on its way to fury, and it didn’t matter to me that Wayne Kemp was three times my size. It didn’t matter he had fists the size of Christmas hams. It didn’t matter that he outweighed me by two hundred pounds. All that mattered was that he’d dared to lay a hand on John and I wanted him to feel the same pain he caused his son. I wanted him to scream.

  I wanted him to bleed.

  I felt cold even as I stepped out into the sunlight, making my way to the bleachers. I kept my head down, not wanting anyone to see the fear on my face. Someone might’ve asked questions. Someone might’ve tried to stop me. I couldn’t let that happen.

  I made it to the football field without being noticed. The bleachers were empty, as they usually were. I sat down on the bottom bench, looking back toward the school, checking to see if anyone was watching me.

  A few minutes later, right before I was about to head for loose part of the fence the teachers didn’t know about, I heard a soft voice.

  “Jackie.”

  I turned around and craned my neck. Through the slats in the bleachers, I saw John staring back at me, his face in shadows. I glanced back to the school. No one was watching us. I grabbed my backpack and ran around the side of the bleachers and headed underneath, where John waited.

  “Where were you?” I demanded as I got closer. “I was worried! You ain’t got no right to scare me like that!”

  “I’m sorry, Jackie,” he said quietly, looking down at the ground. He turned slightly away, as if upset, but I saw the way he was holding himself and I knew. Right then I knew. “I didn’t mean to worry you. Just took me a bit longer to get here today. Tried to go as fast as I could. Just wanted to get to you.” His breath hitched in his chest.

  I reached out to him and gently took his arm. He tried to pull away from me, to keep me from seeing the extent of the damage, but I was insistent. When he finally looked down at me, I moaned, unable to keep the sound from crawling out of my throat.

  There was a vicious cut on his right cheek, bright and swollen. His right eye was covered in a darkening bruise. His bottom lip was split. I could see by the way he held himself that there were further marks on his body that I couldn’t see, hidden underneath his clothing. But what got to me the most was the clear outline of fingers embedded into his throat where a large hand had been wrapped around him, choking him, cutting off his air.

  Anger boiled through me, hot and roaring. Not at him, though.

  Never at him.

  “What happened?” I growled, unable to keep the fury from my voice.

  He shrugged, trying to avoid my eyes. “Wayne came home drunker than usual. Had pills too. Lots of pills, though I don’t know how many he took. I got up to get ready this morning and he was just getting in.”

  “Why didn’t you just stay out of his way? Better yet, why didn’t you just come over to my house? You know my parents are gone for that church retreat for the next two weeks! You could have come to me!” I had to keep myself from shouting at him.

  “I tried,” he said gruffly. “I wanted to. I was on my way out the door even before he threw his first punch. I was just gonna come to you. To make it better. Jackie, I promise I tried.”

  I took his hand in mine, bringing it to my lips and kissing him, not even caring if someone else saw. It seemed unlikely we’d be seen, with how hidden we were, but it didn’t matter anyway. “Why couldn’t you leave?”

  His expression tightened when I looked back up at him. “He called… bastard,” he snarled at me. “That fucking bastard called you names. He asked if I was going to the little faggot’s house. He laughed and he called you a fucking faggot, a little bitch boy. A Jesus freak. So many other things. I didn’t… I couldn’t walk away from that. I wouldn’t. I won’t. No one gets to call you things like that, Jackie. No one gets to run you down. Not while I’m here.”

  I was chilled. “What did you do?” I whispered.

  “Told him to shut up. Told him he ain’t ever allowed to say your name again. Told him I’d kick the shit outta him if he ever said your name again. If he ever called you names again, it’d be the last thing he did, I’d make sure of it. Then he hit me. Kicked me. Choked me. And I hit him back. For once, I hit him back. He got a few licks in, but not as many as I did him. I ain’t gonna stand and let someone talk like that about you, Jackie. I won’t. I don’t care what you say or nothin’. No one, and I mean no one, will ever talk that way about you while I’m here.” He glared at me defiantly, as if expecting me to contradict him.

  “Did you kill him?” I asked shakily.

  His eyes widened, and then he grimaced. His face must have been hurting something awful. “No. Didn’t kill him. Wanted to. Wanted to so bad, but I didn’t. Left him on the floor. I don’t know if I knocked him out or if he passed out from all the booze and pills, but no. Wouldn’t do that, Jackie. Even if I wanted to.”

  “Because it’s wrong?” Please say because it’s wrong. That’s the only thing that’ll make sense. That’s the only thing that’s right.

  He shook his head as he leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “No, ’cause it could take me from you. That won’t happen. I won’t let it.”

  As much as his words should have terrified me, they didn’t. As much as they should have given me pause and made me take a step back, I didn’t. I wasn’t scared of John, only scared for him. He’d done what he thought was right, all in the name of protecting me, and he knew I’d do the same for him.

  “C’mon,” I said, tugging on his hand.

  “Where we going?”

  “Home. My house, so I can take care of you.”

  “You got class, Jackie. Can’t miss it. You gotta go to class so you can graduate and get the hell out of this town. Get away from this place.”

  I tugged harder at him. “We’ll get away from here,” I reminded him. “One day won’t matter. Maybe two.”

  “But if your parents find out—”

  “I ain’t scared of my parents,” I retorted, even if that was a bit of a lie. “They ain’t here. Don’t you argue with me, John Michael Kemp.”

  He looked contrite, knowing I only said his full name when I was upset, as if I were his parent or something. I thought he might push it a little more, but he sighed and looked down at our joined hands.

  “You were right to come here,” I told him quietly. “You came to find me because you knew I’d take care of the rest. You’re always watchin’ out for me, John. It’s my turn to do it for you.”

  He didn’t argue.

  I didn’t think he’d be able to ride his bike, not with the four miles it took him to reach me, so I walked our bikes to my house while he trudged along beside me. We didn’t say much on the way. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I had murder in my heart. Vengeance. Anger. It was sin, I knew, but since I was apparently already wallowing in it, a little bit more didn’t seem to matter. It should have made me feel cold. It should have made me want to back down. It should have scared the holy hell out of me that I could feel such pulsing fury ripping through me.

  But it didn’t. All I knew, all I could think of, was that someone had tried to hurt what was mine. Someone had dared to lay a finger on John when all he wanted to do was protect me.

  It didn’t lessen, this anger. It didn’t lessen as we got home. It didn’t lessen as I stripped off his shirt and pants, trying to keep from crying out at the bruising that spread across the skin of his back, his side, his chest. It didn’t lessen as I kissed each and every mark as tears fell from my eyes. It didn’t lessen as I put him in my bed, brushing my lips over his forehead, and he immediately passed out, giving in to his exhaustion. He was finally somewhere safe, where he wouldn’t have to worry anymore, where he wouldn’t have to be afraid. No, the anger didn’t lessen a bit.

  If anything, it grew.

  It grew as I watched the boy I loved asleep in my bed. It grew as I brushed the sweaty dark hair from his brow. It grew as I took a wet cloth and brushed it over the crusted cut on his cheek, the dark red smearing against the white of the washcloth. No one would ever talk about me the way his father had. John wouldn’t allow it. No one would ever touch me because John was there.

  And I would do the same for him.

  My daddy wasn’t aware that I knew about the handgun in the box in the back of his closet, seen one day by accident. He didn’t know that I knew there were bullets in his nightstand drawer for that very same gun. I thought he was ashamed at having such a thing, at the very least wary of it, given he was a man of God. I didn’t know if he had it for protection, or just because he was a man and a man should always own a gun. I didn’t know. Right now, why didn’t matter.

  I wasn’t thinking much as I rode across town, trying hard not to stare at the white pillowcase in the wire basket on the front of my bike, knowing what it held inside. I felt light, like I was floating, a faint buzzing in my ear. I was awash with a cold fury and I wasn’t thinking about much of anything at all. Just about John. How I could make it better for John, make it okay for John. Before I knew it, I’d arrived.

  Wayne’s old truck was parked in front of the house.

  House may have been too strong of a word. It was really more of a shack—four walls and a roof overhead. The inside was small and sectioned off by paper-thin walls, dividing into two rooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. I’d only been inside once or twice, given that John was embarrassed by it.

  I told him repeatedly that he had no need to be that way, that I didn’t care where he came from. He didn’t want my pity or my charity. When I gave anything to him, it was never about that. It was about me taking care of what was mine, and I made sure we were clear on the matter.

  I would take care of what was mine. John would never be hurt again.

  I unwrapped my daddy’s gun from the pillowcase, leaving my bike propped up on its kickstand. I wrapped the pillowcase around my neck, but didn’t cover my face. I was just going to scare him, I told myself, but I wanted him to see who it was. I was just going to scare Wayne, tell him he better stay away from John or the next time I came here, I’d shoot him. I’d shoot him dead and I wouldn’t feel wrong about a thing.

  Or, a voice whispered in my head, you could just shoot him now. Who’s to say that this won’t happen again? Who’s to say the moment John has to come back home, his father won’t beat him again? Maybe even worse? Maybe he’ll kill him this time. Maybe John will go home in a few days, and Wayne will put his hands around his throat again and choke him until all the air is gone from his body and his heart has stopped in his chest. You’d never see him again and you’d think back to this moment, this single moment when you could have stopped all the pain. You could have stopped all the hurt.

  But it’s wrong, I thought. Thou shalt not kill.

  Thou shalt not kill? It laughed at me. Will thou stand by and let John be killed? Will thou do nothing?

  I didn’t knock. I pushed open the door.

  The air felt hot inside the shack, stagnant and thick. I took a step in, my eyes bulging as I looked around the room in darting glances, my hands shaking, the barrel of my daddy’s gun tapping against my thigh. My finger tightened against the trigger until I forced myself to loosen my grip.

  “Wayne?” I croaked out.

  Nothing.

  He wasn’t on one of the dirty twin beds pressed against the far wall that he and John slept on. I was hyperaware of every little shuffling step I took, every little creak and groan of the shack. I couldn’t hear any other movement aside from my own, though my ragged breath was like a tornado in my ears. “Wayne?”

  Nothing.

  Maybe he’s gone, I thought. Truck’s out front, but maybe he just up and started walking.

  I took another step.

  Maybe he’ll just keep walking, never stopping once to look back.

  Another step.

  Maybe he’ll never look back and will never come back, and John and me won’t ever have to worry again, and we’ll live together and we’ll grow old together and I’ll love him until the day we die. No. Beyond that. I’ll love him forever.

  Another step around the broken recliner, and I—

  My foot hit something on the floor. I looked down.

  Wayne Kemp lay sprawled out on his back on the floor. For a moment, I thought he was dead, but then his chest moved ever so slightly. A shallow inhale, a light exhale. A pause that seemed to last for ages. Then another breath in, and another out. Each exhale brought a heavy stench of liquor.

  He had a dark bruise on his cheek where it looked like he’d been struck by a fist. Other than that, I couldn’t see any signs of injury, and I wondered if John had hit him with something else. Then I saw an empty bottle lying flat on its side near his outstretched hand, an amber drop of whiskey hanging from the open mouth of the bottle. Little white dots littered the floor around him and, as I took a step closer, I heard a crunch underneath my foot. I looked down as I moved my leg and saw I’d stepped on one of the white dots, turning it to powder.

  Pills. Pills lay scattered all over the floor, amidst small shards of brown glass that had once been a prescription bottle. I didn’t know what kind of drugs they were, and it didn’t matter.

  The only thing that mattered was when my eyes drifted to Wayne’s hands and I saw the dried, crusty blood that covered his split knuckles. Knuckles that had been split when they’d slammed into John. Blood on his hands that probably came from John. All I could see was the blood and how big his hands were, how they could so easily have wrapped around John’s throat and squeezed and squeezed until John couldn’t breathe, until the life was slowly choked out of him.