#1.5 Finding Autumn (7 page)

Her emotions impressed upon my own, and I jumped off of the bed to put distance between us. If I were close enough to smell the honey scent on her skin, it would make the process of pushing her away impossible to accomplish. “Autumn, you’re acting like the same people you claim to hate. You’re making assumptions about me based on what people at school say. I’m not the type of guy to run around hooking up with girls and bragging about it.”

She sniffed, and I could see regret seep into her features. Quickly, she apologized for not being above the rumor mill. She had opened up to me somewhat in the months we spent together as friends. She had told me about being harassed in school—being called a slut and a cock-tease. She blamed the rumors on her ex-boyfriend—a dick who treated her like crap and spread lies about their relationship. I had already known most of the stuff said about her in high school. Delia and I would spend hours online looking up what we could about Autumn. The Facebook page dedicated to Autumn was a masterful move on the part of her ex-friends. The obvious intention was to display Autumn’s wild side and undermine her testimony against my stepfather. The page was taken down a few weeks later, but it left a lasting impression on my sister and me. Delia felt vindicated, as if the virtual words and images were proof of Thomas’s innocence.

As I thought about Autumn’s disloyal high school friends, I understood it was time to stop my selfish behavior. I liked her, but where were we headed? We couldn’t be a couple, and as much as I wanted to at least be her friend, I was the worst kind of friend to have. I was a liar and a schemer, and I couldn’t do it anymore. The guilt was getting to be too much.

“I’m not trying to be an ass here,” I said with an apology resonating in my voice. “I may have given you shit about Josh, but if you’re looking to get involved with someone, he’s the right kind of guy for you. We’re not good for each other.”

I ignored the vomit-inducing sensation caused by the suggestion. I wanted to kill any fucker who came sniffing around her. The last thing I wanted was to see her dating anyone, but I had to steer her feelings away from me. I’d been trying to come off as disinterested, but it was useless. Autumn seemed to possess the ability to see past my artificiality and to know innately when I was sincere or not.

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why? Is it because I look like your ex?”

My pounding headache worsened at her line of questioning. “What? Where would you get that idea?”

“You were staring me down at that party and said later I reminded you of someone. It didn’t sound like a favorable comparison, so I assumed it was an ex-girlfriend.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and I could see her struggling to hold it all together. When she had asked me for an explanation about my strange behavior the night we met, I claimed it was a case of mistaken identity. It never occurred to me that it would lead her to assume I was referring to an ex.

“You’re nothing like her.” I gasped. It was as close to the truth as I was willing to come.
She
was nothing like the Autumn Dorey I had envisioned in my mind. Or the fabricated version created by Thomas.

“So, it’s you then?” Autumn demanded.

“If you knew everything about me, you’d be running as far away from me as humanly possible.”

“Tell me and let me decide for myself,” she said flatly. Her stony expression told me she was expecting answers and wouldn’t be satisfied with my lame attempts at skirting around the truth.

If I ever needed an opening to come clean, it would never be better than that. I tried to figure out what to say, how to possibly defend my actions, but I was speechless. What I’d been doing was indefensible. I was never truly myself with anyone, and I had hoped to have the chance with Autumn. But it wasn’t meant to be. I understood how impossible our situation was when I noticed her looking at me as if she could see right through me. She seemed offended by my hesitation and asked me to go. She seemed suddenly intent on shutting me out.

I was unhinged and the truth was a loaded gun I was concealing in my back pocket. To keep her safe, I had to stay the hell away from her.

“I’m a coward, and as much as you deserve to know the truth about me, I can’t tell you,” I said with regret. “I like you, and I can’t stand the idea of you thinking I’m a piece of garbage.”

She asked me to leave again as I tried to apologize. She had been mine and I had pushed her away in the span of seconds. By the look on her face, I assumed her hurt was gradually being replaced by anger and frustration. She had no idea that painting myself as a bad guy was my warped way of protecting her. She had suffered too much and didn’t need another person in her life that would end up hurting her. I wished things could be different, but I couldn’t change who I was.

As I started to walk away, I felt like I was deserting her. After the promise I made to myself that I’d take care of her, I was leaving. I left her room cast as another villain, and it was the role I had to remain in.

***

“What the fuck was that about, Blake?”

“Watch your mouth. I may be your brother, but you shouldn’t curse so much.”

Delia laughed humorlessly. “My father is serving time at the state pen. Since he’s been locked up, he’s taught me how to curse, trade cigarettes, and make prison tats. Can’t blame me for my poor upbringing.”

“You’re not funny.”

We sat across from each other at a diner in Clark. For several years, we had been going to the same diner. It was our place to hang out when we needed a breather from our parents. With the outdated wallpaper and broken floor tiles, it was high up on the dive scale. Nevertheless, they made the best cheeseburgers in town.

It was a week since I ran out on our family dinner and I was trying to make it up to Delia. My mom had plans for the night and her absence was a welcome respite. I didn’t want her probing over my lack of enthusiasm about Thomas’s release. She had been calling me non-stop since my freak out. She was insistent over resolving my issues with Thomas before he returned home.

“Blake, are you even fucking listening to me?”

I shot Delia an annoyed look before taking a long gulp of water. “You’re only doing it now to get a rise out of me.”

“You know me so well.” Delia tossed back her long hair and leaned forward, her blue eyes trained on my face. “Anyway, I asked what’s going on with you. You ran out of dinner like your ass was on fire and avoided my calls all week long.”

“I just have stuff going on.”

“Blake, things between you and Dad are messed up. I get it,” she said with exasperation. “But we need to support him. The last time I saw him, he looked awful. He had a bruise on his face that he couldn’t explain. He’s lost a ton of weight….”

“Stop it,” I begged her. She wouldn’t force me to feel sympathy for him. I was trying in my own crazy-ass way to come to terms that the man I had thought of as “Dad” was a sex offender. And then my heart decided to fuck up my life by making me fall for his victim.

Delia ignored my pleas. “He told me he’s written you. What did he say in the letters?”

I hadn’t planned to read the letters. Setting them on fire as soon as they arrived seemed like a better plan. But I couldn’t help myself. I was looking for something in his letters—some sort of explanation for what he’d done. Reading them anyway was a fool’s errand, because words could never adequately explain why Thomas attempted to rape his student.

“He misses me and wants to see me. He’s sorry for what he’s put our family through,” I said shortly. Delia nodded, pleased with the answer. I didn’t want or need his apology. If Thomas wanted to express regret to someone, it should be to Autumn.

“He’ll be home in a couple of months, and we can finally move on. Isn’t that what we’ve been waiting for?” Delia asked.

I watched my sister for a long minute. I had to tread carefully. Delia could come off as fierce at times, but she had a fragile side most people rarely saw. “Do you think about it at all, Del? About what he did?”

Delia frowned at the question. “Of course I do. I’m almost the same age now as the girl he screwed. It makes me sick to think about him doing the nasty with some high school girl behind Mom’s back.” Before I could respond, she added, “But it doesn’t make what he did criminal. Aren’t all men the same? Thinking with their dicks instead of their brains?”

Delia was becoming more and more agitated, but I had to force the issue. “What if he’s lying? What if he did try to rape Autumn?”

Delia’s grip tightened around her soda glass. “He
didn’t
.”

“But—”

She didn’t let me finish. “This is
Dad
we’re talking about. Don’t you think we would’ve suspected something if he was some sort of molester?”

“Would we?” I sat back into the plastic backing of the booth we shared. “It’s not like we know a lot about our parents’ personal lives. It’s not like he would wear a sign on his neck saying he was a rapist.”

Delia’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Believe what you want, but we do know all about Autumn Dorey’s personal life. I remember those pictures and what her friends said about all the guys she hooked up with. Her best friend even said she was trying to sleep with Dad as a way to get him to change her math grade.”

“I think we convinced ourselves to believe the rumors because we didn’t want to see the truth.” I countered. “The police had enough physical evidence to convict him. It wasn’t only his word against hers.”

“He explained that. Autumn was into kinky shit and asked him to do some kind of dominant and submissive sex games. The taboo of doing a teacher was a turn on for her.”

Delia was almost seventeen, but I still saw her as a little girl. I felt the conversation was necessary to have, but it was still making me gag on my lunch to hear her talk about that kind of sex, or any kind, really. With my mother refusing to acknowledge Thomas’s wrongdoing, Delia was one of the only options I had open to me.

But how could I fault Delia’s unwavering devotion to her dad? I didn’t get what I was trying to prove by forcing the truth down her throat. Thinking it over, I realized I was attempting to make it okay for me to be with Autumn. It was stupid to think Delia would suddenly change her opinion. Even if she could admit her dad was at least partially responsible, it still didn’t remove the hundreds of other obstacles standing in the way of Autumn and me being together.

“I’m not going to tell you what to believe, or say you shouldn’t have a relationship with your father,” I said, my voice low and resigned. “I respect your choice to have him in your life. But you’re gonna have to respect my choice to remove him from mine.”

Delia grew quiet. “It just makes me sad for you, Blake. You don’t get along with Mom. Your dad is dead, and you’re basically saying my dad is dead to you. Besides me, who else do you have?”

She was saying I had no one, and it was a valid assessment. I was constantly surrounded by people, but usually felt alone. It was hard to get close to anyone when I worried about them finding out about my family’s background. This feeling was compounded every minute I spent with Autumn. Although I didn’t pick Thomas as my family, he had been a part of it for almost my entire life. When Autumn found out I was his stepson, she’d never accept me.

“I’m fine.” I shrugged. Acting indifferent over her appraisal was better than giving her glimpse of how I’d been crumbling under the weight of my deception. “I’m the big brother, so I get to worry about you, not the other way around.” I took a massive bite of the cheeseburger I had ordered to avoid elaborating further.

“Whatever. Is there anyone at school? You never talk about girls, are you dating?”

I almost choked on the food in my mouth. “No. I’m too busy to date.”

Delia rolled her eyes. “You play college football, you’re not on the road with the NFL.” My sister would never be one to stroke my ego. “I know what goes on in college, I’m not stupid. But, instead of screwing around, you should think about getting a girlfriend.”

My leg started bouncing up and down. “There was someone….” By the way Delia’s eyes lit up, I regretted the admission instantly. I knew why I had said something—because I missed Autumn, and keeping my emotions to myself was making me crazy. Regardless of how I felt, I was tempting trouble by opening up to Delia.

“Well, what happened? Did she see how terrible you dance? Did you show her that ugly-ass mole you have on your leg?”

I grinned at her. “If those are my worst qualities, I mustn’t be too bad.” I shifted in my seat. “I liked someone, but it’s not going to work out. If anything happens between us, she’ll only end up getting hurt.”

“You can be such a cocky dick sometimes. Who are you to decide that? Shouldn’t you let her decide if she wants to take the risk or not?”

“But I want to be the good guy for once, and I’ll only mess things up if I continue to pursue her.”

“Well then don’t hurt her,” Delia instructed. “Treat her the way she should be, and there won’t be a problem.”

My sister made it sound like the simplest thing in the world. Just being who I was would devastate Autumn, and it killed me. I felt suffocated by my feelings for her. And, unfortunately, relief would only come from breaking things off before I got further entangled.

However, being away from Autumn had made me irrational, because I began to have the craziest ideas. Ideas like she could get to know the real me—outside of the label as Thomas Bridges’s stepson. I had grown to care about her, and I wanted to fix the unfixable. She would never get completely over what Thomas had done to her, but maybe she could let go of the hurt and move on. Autumn deserved love and happiness in her life, and I wanted somehow to give her those things.

Chapter Eight

I took a deep breath in front of the mirror, trying to calm my racing heart. I groaned as I noticed a sheen of sweat breaking out at my hairline. I wiped it away, hoping the perspiration wouldn’t cause my forehead to break out any worse than it had. I had problematic acne since I was twelve, and two years later, it wasn’t much better.