“I ran to the kitchen, and when I saw he’d left his gun on the counter after he’d gotten home, I grabbed it and racked the slide. I didn’t want to shoot him. I just wanted him to feel what it was like to be that scared. I told him to back up, to leave me alone. But he charged and grabbed for the gun. It went off, or I pulled the trigger. I don’t even know. It was all so fast.” His words stuck in his throat at that. “Is he… Did he…”
Rebecca took a steadying breath. “I don’t know. Last I heard, he was in surgery.”
Steven pressed his palm over his eyes, crying. “I don’t want him to die. I just wanted him to leave me alone.”
“I know,” she said, trying to keep a soothing tone. “I know that’s what you want. And I can help you with that, but in order for me to do that, I need you around. We can build a case, Steven. You were abused. You felt threatened. It was self-defense. Your father will probably survive, and the charge will be less. There are a lot of things working in your favor. But suicide is the worst answer. That way, he wins.”
Steven lowered his hand and looked down at the gun in his right hand, a dark look in his eyes. “He always wins anyway, so what’s the point?”
She shook her head. “The point is he’s never met me before. I take personal issue with the bad guys winning, and I’m not afraid of bullies. I can’t promise you a certain outcome, but I can promise you that I will give everything I have to fight for you. And it’s not just me. I have loads of lawyer friends who can help us out. Plus, Chef G will have your back. He’s seen the bruises. He’s been worried about you for a long time but didn’t have enough evidence to report. You have people in your corner rooting for you.”
She reached out to touch him, but he jolted, the gun automatically going to his temple.
“Don’t,” he warned.
She heaved in a breath and lifted her palm in surrender, a head-to-toe tremor working its way through her. “Please. I wasn’t trying to take the gun. I wouldn’t do that. Please point it down again. You’re scaring me.”
Guilt flickered in his gaze, and he held her stare for a long moment, but then he slowly lowered the gun.
Her phone buzzed. The line had dropped, and Wes’s name lit up her screen. “I need to answer that. It’s Wes checking on us, okay?”
Steven nodded. She hit the speakerphone button.
“Tell me you’re both okay,” Wes said. “The police line dropped.”
“We’re okay,” she said.
“I don’t think I can go out there, Chef G,” Steven hiccupped. “It’s too late. I’ve done too much.”
Rebecca’s heart had lodged in her throat, and she could barely breathe after the swift move with the gun, but she managed to maintain her outward composure. “It’s not too late, Steven. You’re only sixteen. We all make mistakes.”
He scoffed. “Sure. I’m sure lots of teenagers commit crimes and possible murder and come back from that.”
“You can come back from this,” Wes said, his voice crackling on the line.
But Steven wasn’t listening. They were losing him. He was getting knotted up in his own tangled thoughts.
Rebecca swallowed past the tension in her throat but didn’t look away from Steven. I’m sure lots of teenagers come back from that. She forced herself to ignore the open line on the phone and did the only thing she could think to do to get Steven’s attention. “What if I told you that when I was sixteen I did something that helped lead to many people’s deaths?”
Steven’s attention jerked her way, his brows low. “What?”
Her throat wanted to close up, but she pushed past the automatic roadblock. She needed to say what she’d only ever said to her father. “I’ve only told one other person this, but once upon a time, I was friends with one of the Long Acre shooters. Secret friends, but friends. And one day, to save my own image, I humiliated him in a way that I know he never came back from, a way that helped turn him toward the choice he made the night he killed so many of my classmates.”
Steven’s lips parted.
“I’ve lived every day knowing that I did this horrible thing,” she said, her chest tight with anxiety. “No, I couldn’t be put in jail for it, but I’ve been where you are. After it happened, I didn’t want to go on. Ending my life seemed like the only option. But when I took a bottle of pills to make that happen, my dad caught me. And I promise you, my first thought when I got to the hospital was, Please don’t let me die. I changed my mind the instant I realized I might not make it. That gun”—she nodded at the weapon in his hand—“isn’t going to give you that option. It’s so fast, so final, you won’t get the chance to take it back.”
He looked down, his shoulders shaking with his soft crying.
“I’m not going to pretend that I’m past what happened back then, that I’m not still eaten up by guilt. I am. Every day,” she said. “But I’m not sorry that my dad caught me with the pills. I cherish every day of my life because I know how easily it could’ve been taken away, first by the shooting, then by my own hand. And I’m trying in my own way to make up for the bad decisions I made back when I was in high school. You can do that, too. Use your life for something good. You can have another chance. Have this be a beginning instead of an ending.”
Steven lifted his head. His eyes were puffy from the tears, but a glimmer of yearning was there.
That was all she needed. Hope. A sign that he wanted to live. She nodded at the gun. “Please put the gun down, Steven. I need you to trust me. We can walk out together. And yes, they’re going to take you to the police station. I can’t prevent that. But know that I’ll be there, too. We’ll start working tonight on how to get you out and get the truth told.”
He
held her gaze, his Adam’s apple bobbing. She could see the wheels turning in his head, the options being weighed, but finally his shoulders sagged. “I’m scared.”