Kathleen Hale - No One Else Can Have You

“Still,” I say, grabbing the beer from Davey and pretending to take a sip of it so he won’t. “It’s not fair to call Staake dumb when he’s been doing this for, like, twenty years. I mean he’s the sheriff, right? He had to earn that somehow.”

“You don’t understand it, okay?” Davey shuts his eyes. “The thing that really haunts me—the thing that I can’t get out of my head—is how in Afghanistan, I mean . . . you know what I did over there. I killed people. But I knew dudes who liked to kill people. There were certain guys none of us wanted to be around because they took this thrill from it. I know those guys. I know how they talk. I know how they think.” He looks longingly at the beer in my hands. “I know them.”

I pretend to take another sip, nodding, as if I hear war stories all the time. “Go on,” I say, and brace myself for the real underlying emotion to come out—the memories of battle, dead children, men screaming. Davey obviously needs to talk about Afghanistan, not Colt.

“Colt wasn’t like that,” Davey says, shaking his head. “Yeah, he was a douche bag, but he was also a huge pansy. Softhearted. It was part of what made him so annoying.” He turns and pats the twenty-four pack of Beast behind him, as if to remind himself it’s still there. “I mean, I remember this time that Colt and I had to stay later than the rest of the football team so we could finish this math test. Yeah, I was in the sophomore math class as a senior, so sue me.”

I shrug like pfft, math, who can even do that stuff , even though I’m very competent at mathematics.

“Anyhow, the rest of the team had already taken the bus to Marquette, but Colt and I had to drive separate. We hit a moose on the way.”

“A moose?” I balk. “Are you sure it wasn’t, like, a superhuge buck?” I’ve never seen a moose in Friendship.

“I know. It was crazy—moose are monsters, you know.”

“They stand up to six and a half feet at the shoulder, can run up to thirty-five miles per hour, and are double-jointed so they kick in all directions,” I blurt. I remember certain facts from my days of being obsessed with animal attacks. “I’m actually surprised it wasn’t in the papers.” Around here moose are about as rare as murder.

“Right. Anyway, I know you know how gruesome something like that can be because of what happened to your neighbors. Colt and I were fine, but the car was fucked, obviously, and there was a ton of blood.” Davey shrugs. “The kid was shaken up. At first I thought it was because of the collision—those things leave you scrambled. But in our case the carcass was too big—we couldn’t haul it off ourselves—so we had to put the car in reverse and try to sort of slide out from under it.”

“Was it still alive?”

“A little bit. But you know . . . it was on its way. And I had our family’s gun in the car.”

“I can’t believe Ruth didn’t tell me about it.”

Davey shrugs. “It wasn’t her problem.” He picks at his cuticles. “So one of us had to drive off it, and one of us had to brace against this dead moose, to keep it from just staying there on top of the car—I mean it was a wonder we didn’t die, really—and it was my car, so just automatically I got behind the wheel. I gave the other part of the job to Colt.” He raises his eyebrows. “Anyway, Colt gets blood on his hands and just starts puking and sobbing—I’m not even joking. Afterward, he begs me not to tell anyone, says it’ll ruin his image. Someone who reacts that way, they don’t do what someone did to Ruth.” He makes a face like he’s tasted something foul. “It takes a sicko to . . . “ He glances again at the beer in my hand and this time I hand it to him.

“Maybe Colt is schizophrenic,” I say softly. “Maybe after you graduated the killer instinct sprang out of him—I mean, certain types of psychosis don’t kick in until after the age of eighteen.”

Davey stares at me. “You’re always doing that.”

“What?”

“Thinking you know everything about everyone’s brain just because of your dad.”

I bite my tongue, trying not to look humiliated. “Sorry.”

He stares at his feet, turning the beer in his hands. “Don’t you think Ruth would have told you something like that? Like if Colt were straight-up crazy, or whatever?” He peers at me skeptically. His blue eyes stand out bright against his red-and-orange plaid shirt.

I think of Jim Steele and Ruth making out. Of the journal in my backpack. “You’d be surprised.”

He laughs. “Fine, shoot down everything I say.”

“Check her phone or something if you’re so paranoid—I mean, you called me from it tonight, didn’t you? Maybe there’s something on there. A creepy text from Colt—”

“I already did,” he says. “The texts were all deleted. Somebody deleted them.”

“See?” I shrug apologetically. “You’ve got no evidence.”

“Fuck—you know what? I’m sick of you playing devil’s advocate.” He looks away. “Suffice it to say that you are not the only one who thinks I’m crazy for saying this—do you know I went in and gave testimony about Colt’s character? Staake came at me afterward like I’d bit him, telling me how I was a disgrace to the country and everyone knows I got kicked out of the military.”

“Is that true? Did you get kicked out?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter! It’s like mass hysteria here. All these girls are going in and out of the police station, offering their insights on the Honeycomb. It’s all high school drama—all exes—dredging up old hurts and rooting against the poor little shit because they’ve got a vendetta—just like Staake. Probably Staake’s own daughter’s been weighing in on however she thinks Colt slighted her.” He drains his beer and tosses it on the grass. “You should go in there and tell Staake what you know—tell the truth about Colt and don’t exaggerate.” He points a finger right in my face. “You’ll regret it later if you don’t—when you’ve grown up and matured enough to wonder whether you did the right thing while everyone else got caught up in a mob mentality.”

“Geeze, Davey, just because you’re—” I was going to say “troubled” but stop myself just in time. Instead I reach over and untie his shoelaces like I was only teasing—then realize it probably took him a while to tie a bow, having only nine fingers and everything. Our knees are almost touching, and I can feel the warmth of his leg through his pants, and all of a sudden butterflies explode in my stomach—which is embarrassing and happens all the time, usually on the bleachers during assembly, no matter what the person next to me looks like.

“Stop it.” Davey jerks his foot away and scoots over. “What I’m saying is, if you know anything, or think of anything, and you just sit on it, you’re being a bad friend. You’re fucking over Ruth.”

Whatever butterflies I had all crackle and dissolve. “Everyone knows you’ve got PTSD,” I blurt. He gives me a look that makes my stomach hurt, and I try to seem self-confident as I stand up and skedaddle toward Rhonda.

“Welcome home,” Dom mumbles as I come in the door. He’s standing at the kitchen counter in his bathrobe, putting leftover pizza into Tupperware containers, not looking at me. “You’re half an hour late.”

“I know.”

He pushes down the Tupperware cover with a loud click. “This is your one get-out-of jail-free card.”

“Okay.” I take a few steps toward him, unsure whether giving him a hug might fix things.

“Ralph and I sure had a fun night, you know.” He smells like fabric softener. “Also, your laundry’s folded on your bed, and I had them put a couple broccolis on the corner of my pizza, so you can have those slices for breakfast or something if you want—oh, and here’s some chamomile tea.” He reaches behind him and hands me a mug.