Todd Strasser - Blood on my hands

“And that’s when Dakota said her mother could help you get the deferment from the medical review board?”

“Yeah.”

The next part is difficult for me to put into words: “After the kegger, why didn’t you turn yourself in right away?”

He looks away. “I felt like… like it was all everyone else’s fault. Like it was Katherine’s fault for making you break up with me. And it was Dakota’s fault for lying about you having another boyfriend. And it was your fault, Cal, for doing what Katherine wanted you to do. Because that’s what started it all in the first place. Like you and them and everyone else were the reason I lost control with Katherine. Like you and them were to blame for everything that happened. And then I thought about my dad and what it would do to him. I mean, me being arrested for murder. I knew it would kill him. And then, instead of having one death on my head, I’d have two.”

“And then you found out what Dakota meant by taking care of it?”

“Yeah, by putting the blame on you. And then you called and told me you still loved me and it was like… like I realized we were in it together. Like, how could I blame you for what Katherine got you to do when I thought about what Dakota had gotten me to do? You know? It was like we’d both been totally manipulated. Completely outclassed. Like we were two little kids making sand castles with plastic toys and along came Katherine and Dakota with a backhoe and a bulldozer. We never stood a chance.”

“And then you helped me because you didn’t want me to be blamed for killing Katherine any more than you wanted to take the blame yourself?” I ask.

His head bobs up and down as he practically radiates regret.

“But you had to know that by doing that, you’d also be forcing the police to look for someone else, and that you’d be one of the suspects,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “I thought you’d go for the self-defense thing. And that would have been the end of it right there. Case closed. And then, when you said you wouldn’t agree to that, I was hoping that maybe it would be neither of us. The cops would figure out that you couldn’t have done it and they wouldn’t know where else to look. I mean, the only other person who knew what really happened was Dakota, and I was certain she’d be the last one to tell.”

“Guess she surprised us both,” I say.

He nods. “I knew something was up when they impounded my truck and asked me to come down to the station for fingerprints and a DNA test. And that’s when I grabbed a bunch of clothes, got some money, and took the train to Montauk.”

He looks up, his eyes red-rimmed and watery. “I know what you’re thinking, Cal. I left you. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved and I still took off. But I wasn’t going to stay away that long. I knew I’d eventually come back and turn myself in. There’s no way I could have lived with myself knowing what I did. I just”-a strange, sad, ironic smile appears on his lips-“I just… wanted to spend some time as a commercial fisherman first.”

My eyes are also filled with tears. “We both made mistakes, Slade. Big ones.”

On the other side of the window, he wipes the tears from his eyes. “Can you forgive me?”

“Can you forgive me?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He places his hand against the glass.

I press my hand against the other side. “I love you, Slade.”

“I love you, Shrimp.”

Our visit ends. Slade is taken back to his cell, and I leave the facility. It is a bright, clear October day and the sky is blue. In the distance the hillsides are covered with green and here and there a splotch of yellow or red, the first signs of fall. Once I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to wait for Slade for twelve months. Now I may have to wait for years. But I feel like I can. I have seen and experienced more terrible things in the first seventeen years of my life than most people see and experience in a lifetime. If there is anyone who has the right to give up or take the easy way out, it is me. And yet I persist. I will do whatever has to be done. I will wait as long as I must.