Chapter 8 - The Night Brooke Had Forgotten
Lucas had been sixteen.
Not twelve anymore.
Two years after he moved to his aunt's.
I was fourteen.
He had heard through a family friend that Gary was “having trouble” with me.
Gary's phrase.
Trouble meant I had started pushing back.
Curfew.
Friends.
Privacy.
The fact that Gary still walked into my room without knocking.
Lucas came to the house at night.
Not to rescue me.
He said that carefully.
“I was sixteen. I had no plan.”
He just wanted to see me.
Warn me.
Tell me about his old report.
He climbed the side fence.
Tapped my window.
I opened it.
Memory returned in fragments.
A face outside.
Cold air.
Gary shouting downstairs.
Then blank.
“What happened?”
“Gary found me.”
“How?”
“I knocked over the garbage cans.”
“Smooth.”
“I was sixteen.”
Fair.
Lucas smiled briefly.
Then:
“He dragged me around front.”
“Did he hit you?”
“Not important.”
“It is to me.”
Lucas looked at Ethan.
“Later.”
I accepted it.
He continued.
“Marianne came outside. You came down.”
I remembered standing halfway down the stairs.
Gary shouting that Lucas was trespassing.
Lucas shouting that he needed to tell me something.
“What?”
He stared at me.
“That Gary had hurt me.”
My stomach turned.
“What did I say?”
“You told him to stop lying.”
I shut my eyes.
There it was.
The sentence Mom later claimed was mine.
Except I'd actually said it.
Once.
At fourteen.
Because Gary had spent four years telling me Lucas lied.
Lucas continued quickly.
“You didn't know.”
“I said it.”
“You were a kid.”
“I said it.”
“Yes.”
No rescue from the fact.
I breathed.
“Then Holloway came?”
“Neighbor called police.”
“Holloway recognized you.”
“Yes.”
I remembered blue lights.
Mom sending me upstairs.
Gary telling police Lucas was stalking us.
Holloway asking me if Gary scared me.
Me saying no.
Again.
Lucas said:
“You came back downstairs later.”
“I don't remember.”
“You told Holloway you fell at volleyball.”
“Yes.”
“And you told him I was trying to make trouble.”
I looked away.
Lucas rubbed his hands together.
“For years I thought you chose them.”
“I didn't know.”
“I know that now.”
“What changed?”
“Growing up.”
He smiled sadly.
“And therapy.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course.”
He continued:
“I started understanding how adults build children's reality.”
I thought of Ethan.
“What about Mom?”
“She called my aunt the next day.”
“What did she say?”
“That if I came back, she'd seek a restraining order.”
My chest tightened.
“She really wanted you gone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lucas looked toward the window.
“I think I reminded her what she'd done.”
That sounded plausible.
Not provable.
He said so.
“I don't know.”
Good.
No polished motive.
I asked:
“Why did Holloway say somebody else reported Gary before mine? He knew about you, obviously.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't he tell me then?”
“He tried.”
I stared.
“What?”
Lucas took out his phone.
Not a secret recording.
A photograph.
Old police contact card.
Daniel Holloway's name.
On the back, in faded pen:
BROOKE — IF YOU EVER NEED TO TALK, CALL.
My handwriting was beneath it.
A phone number.
Not Holloway's.
Lucas's aunt.
I stared.
“I wrote this?”
“You did.”
Memory came.
Holloway giving me a card.
Telling me I didn't need permission to call.
Me hiding it inside a library book.
“What happened to it?”
“Marianne found it.”
My stomach tightened.
“How do you know?”
“She gave it to my aunt with my things.”
I looked at Lucas.
“You've had this fourteen years.”
“Yes.”
“Why not send me a picture?”
“I tried once.”
“When?”
“When you were nineteen.”
I stared.
“I got a message from your account saying never contact me again.”
I knew immediately.
“What account?”
“Facebook.”
I closed my eyes.
At nineteen, Gary still knew my old password.
He had helped set up the account when I was fourteen.
I changed it after strange login alerts.
I never knew what he'd done.
Maybe Gary sent it.
Maybe Mom.
Maybe someone else.
We did not know.
Lucas watched me.
“I stopped trying.”
I wanted to blame him.
Instead I understood.
Rejection repeated long enough becomes instruction.
Then Ethan walked into the kitchen.
He had heard more than I wanted.
“Brooke?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you think Lucas was bad?”
I looked at him.
“When I was your age?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
Ethan thought.
“Can I think Dad is good sometimes and still be wrong?”
The question hurt.
Lucas looked away.
I answered:
“Yes.”
Ethan stared at the table.
“Then how do you know?”
I had no good answer.
May you like
Lucas didn't either.
For once, nobody tried.
