Page 55 of The Edge of Never

“I am. I mean, I’m still fucked up about the whole thing if I’m honest, but it doesn’t feel quite so… heavy. And, well, I’m seeing it in a different light now. You did that for me.”

“I just told ye the truth.”

“Can’t always see the truth of the matter when you’re right in the middle of it.”

He looked thoughtful at my statement.

“Aye, mibbe ye’re right. Mibbe that’s why I should tell ye aboot Jenna.”

“You really don’t—”

He silenced me with a thumb over my lips.

“If ye dinnae wannae hear it, ye just have tae say it, but I wannae tell ye. I think… I think I need tae.”

I pulled his hand away from my face, and without thinking about it, linked our fingers together.

“You can tell me, Thane. I’m listening.”

Eighteen

Thane

When Kit entwined our fingers together, I couldn’t help staring at them and wondering why they wanted to listen to my story.

If you’d asked me an hour ago whether I would be okay with talking about what truly happened the night Jenna died, the answer would have been fuck no. But something about Kit unburdening themselves to me made me want to share my fucked up story. The true story, not the one I’d given everyone else. There were parts I redacted. The ones that still ate at me. I hadn’t forgiven myself for them. For any of it. It was still my worst fucking nightmare.

Kit had been through some shite too. How they coped with it all, I didn’t know. They were stronger than they knew.

If I continued to think about how they’d been taken advantage of, I would probably want to smash something. While Kit said it was their choice to be Sienna and Lawrence’s surrogate, I couldn’t help but feel as though they did it out of misplaced loyalty and love for someone who didn’t deserve it. And I hated everything about what they’d told me.

“Thane?” came their whispered voice.

I looked away from them.

“I… I dinnae know where tae start.”

Although I wanted to tell Kit, I found it hard to open my mouth and begin.

“Why don’t you start with how you and Jenna met.”

Them giving me a direction helped. I didn’t have to broach the difficult subject of her death just yet. Maybe speaking of the beginning of our lives together would make it easier to talk about the end.

“We were eleven. Jenna’s family moved here right before I started high school. We became friends and eventually, when we were sixteen, Jenna admitted she had a crush on me. I hadnae thought aboot her that way until she said it… took me a bit tae agree tae try us oot, but I did, and it worked. We worked.”

I vividly remembered the day Jenna admitted she liked me. It was a cold, wet Tuesday. We’d been standing under a shelter outside school, waiting for our parents to pick us up. She blurted it out suddenly. I was so taken aback that I didn’t know what to say, so I told her I would talk to her about it the next day.

Callan was the one I confided in after it happened. He was keen for me to try, despite my reservations. Said Jenna would be good for me. And he’d been right in his own way. Jenna wore down my hard edges, made me softer and less… intense, as Callan liked to tell me.

“She was easy tae be with. Always kind, caring, and understanding. She was the one who held us together.”

I let out a breath and closed my eyes. It was true enough that Jenna was the glue holding our relationship together. She never made me feel like I had to fight too hard for it. For her. And that was probably why I had no fucking clue things were wrong until it was too late.

“I asked her tae marry me when we were nineteen and a year later, we got married in her parents’ back garden under an oak tree with all oor friends and family surrounding us. It was the happiest day of her life. I always knew she wanted the perfect day even though I wasnae really fussed aboot the wedding. Just wanted us tae be together, but I gave her that ‘cause I loved her.”

Funny that I thought love could carry us through everything. It turned out that wasn’t true. A relationship required more than love. It needed open communication and honesty. Something I always thought we had in spades… until we didn’t.

“We were happy for many years. She was all I wanted, and I thought I was enough for her. We were enough. We’d talked aboot mah feelings regarding having a family in that I didnae want one. I never have. Am like ye, I dinnae want children. I had a vasectomy when I was twenty-five. Jenna was there with me every step of the way. It was never an issue between us.”

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