I’m not completely stupid or confused to the point I didn’t care at all about my safety. Though I’ve been going around acting like I have a death wish, deep down I have never wanted to die. I just wanted the noise in my head to stop. The pain in my heart to go away.
“I tried to use it to get away, but they overpowered me, took the knife, and one of the guys stabbed me with it. The other assholes went crazy. They knew who I was. They knew they would get heat if anything happened to me.”
“It still didn’t stop them from leaving you there,” Mom says, and her voice sounds all choked up again.
Dad kisses her temple and wraps his arms more tightly around her.
“They panicked and ran,” I explain. “They stole my truck, my wallet, my cell, and they took Reeve’s golf watch.” I can’t look at her as I admit the last part. I know my parents won’t care about the truck, my cell, or the wallet. They are replaceable, but Reeve’s watch isn’t.
“What?” Easton blurts, looking confused, and I guess he hadn’t noticed it was missing from the top drawer of his bedside table. “Why did you have my watch when you have your own?”
After I came to live with my family, Mom gave me some things of Reeve’s. She had given Easton some after he died, and she wanted me to have a few of his treasured items too. She gave me the watch she bought him on his twenty-fifth birthday, but I always secretly wanted the golf watch as she gave it to him when he was seventeen and he barely took it off. I know because I’ve seen it on him in so many of the photos in the albums Mom keeps in the living room.
“I stole the watch from your room.”
Easton stares at me in shock.
“It was an asshole move.” I eyeball my brother, hoping he can see the genuine remorse on my face. “I know how much you loved that watch, so I stole it to fuck with your head. I honestly don’t know why I wore it that day. Something compelled me to put it on. I begged them not to take it when they untied it from my wrist. I knew it would devastate you and Mom to lose it. I’m so sorry, East.”
His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and it guts me when he looks away. Mom has a hand over her mouth, and I hate I have disappointed her again.
“It’s okay,” Easton says after a few beats of silence.
“No, it’s not.”
“Your life is worth more than a watch, Bo.”
“Reeve would say the same if he were here,” Mom says.
“This is going to sound hella crazy, but I think…I think he was there with me in the alley.”
You could hear a pin drop in the room. Dad and East look shocked as hell, but Mom is smiling. “I don’t think that’s crazy, honey. You know I used to feel him around me in the aftermath of his death. I haven’t sensed his presence for a long time. I don’t know if you stuck around in the garden to see, but I felt him that night. I was crying to him for help, and he answered.” Tears roll down her face again. “What did you experience?”
My heart is beating superfast, thumping against my rib cage, adrenaline coursing through my veins at the thought my bio dad might have actually been with me in some way. My mind wanders back to that night. “I was on the ground in the alley, and the wound in my side was gushing blood. I had my hands pressed to it, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding.”
I look down at my hospital gown, placing my palm over the bandaged wound. “I tried to get up. I knew I needed to get back out onto the street, or I would die in that alley because no one would’ve found me in the dark in time to save me.” I draw a deep breath. “I couldn’t get up. My legs wouldn’t cooperate. I think it was a combination of shock and blood loss.” I wet my dry lips. “Then I heard someone in my ear urging me to get up, telling me to fight. I went rigidly still, looking around in confusion for the owner of the voice, but there was no one there.”
Mom is practically bouncing in her seat, and Dad is as white as a ghost—no pun intended. Easton looks riveted and intrigued.
“Then I felt someone nudging me. Reeve’s image popped into my mind, and I freaked. I’m not sure I connected the dots at first, but I was scared enough that it jolted my body into action. I managed to get to my feet, and I hobbled out of there as fast as I could. The last thing I remember is collapsing in front of a couple on the sidewalk before I passed out.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Mom repeats it over and over again before a laugh bubbles up her throat. She leans in and kisses me before doing the same to Easton and Dillon. Then she graces us with the biggest smile. “Reeve listened. He helped you.” She clasps both my cheeks, taking care to be gentle. “Your father saved you, Bodhi. He came through for you when you needed him.”