Page 37 of Don't Look Away

Jackson, Lucas, and Christian all perk up a little.

“So the charges are being dropped?” Jackson asks, suspicion in his tone. Out of all of us, he’s definitely the most guarded, and critical.

I push out a breath. “No.” I can feel the tension in the room. We were all hoping our plan would be James’ get-out-of-jail-free card, but it’s not looking like it’s going to be that cut and dry. “I have a call into our lawyer to talk. I’ll offer to pay for inpatient rehab or something, and we’ll have to see if the prosecution will go for it. His recent suicide attempt might actually work in our favor.”

Lucas narrows his eyes. “So he’ll still be a prisoner, just in a hospital instead.”

I lift my hands. “It’s a whole of a lot better than jail, where they don’t give a fuck about mental health. At least with an inpatient program, he might actually get help.”

“Is it really that bad?” Christian asks.

“Dude, he tried tooffhimself,” Jackson says to Christian in a you're-an-idiot tone. “Clearly his mental health is suffering. That place must be fucking torture for him.”

I push out a breath. “It’s not just that. He’s still writing letters to her. I mean, damn, you saw the note he left after cutting himself. He’s still hung up on her. He needs help.”

No one says anything, because they all know it’s true.

“I’ll see if I can get him the least restrictive facility possible,” I add. “Honestly, after jail, a place like that will be like a fucking vacation. Some of these places are like resorts.”

“Your dad hates James,” Lucas points out. “So why would he pay for his treatment?”

Yeah, it’s a fair point. “I’ll have my mom talk to him. She’s the only one who can convince him to do anything.” I shrug. “And it’ll allow Dad to save face. He won’t have to deal with the fact that his stepson is in prison. Because, you know, it’s all about appearances with him.”

Christian shrugs. “It’s a decent solution, I guess.”

“If you can manage to pull it off…” Lucas says with a sigh.

I glance over at Jackson. This is official society business, so I need everyone’s agreement before moving forward. “Thoughts?”

“If the prosecution will take the bait, then yeah, sounds like it might work,” he says.

“Good.” I pull a hand down my face. “I need a fucking drink,” I say, releasing a breath. This shit is so fucking stressful.

I grab that drink—rum and coke—then spend the next hour on the phone with my mom, laying out my new plan for James. I hate getting her hopes up, but I don’t have much of a choice. I need her help because Lucas is right, there’s no way my dad is going to spend a red cent on James unless my mom convinces him to.

By the time I’m off the phone, the Rush House is bursting at the seams. It’s a random Thursday, which of course, means it’s the perfect day for a spontaneous party.

As I walk down the hall toward the living room, dodging people, the music gets louder. We have giant speakers installed in the ballroom for this exact scenario, and the loud, rhythmic bass bounces off the walls, making the windows tremble.

I walk past people smoking weed in the foyer, resisting the urge to take a hit on my way out the door. I could use something to calm me the fuck down right now. It feels like the weight of the universe is on my shoulders. But if I take a hit, Mom would smell it on me though, and that’d be a whole different conversation, and I don’t have the patience to navigate her motherly concern right now.

The drive to my family home is only about fifteen minutes, and as I park in the short driveway, and walk up to the white, concrete building, it occurs to me how the house reflects my father perfectly. It’s right on the beach, so it’s expensive—I think it’s valued at just over forty million dollars these days—and it’s large. Austere.Cold.

I unlock the front door using my phone and walk into the foyer, then meander into the kitchen. It’s an open concept, so each room bends and flows into the other. And it’s like a fishbowl, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the ocean.

Mom is in the kitchen, phone perched on her shoulder as she mixes one of her energy drinks, which is what she consumes instead of food. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and she still looks quite young, which is probably due to all the fillers, and expensive serums she slathers on her face at night.

“Hey, mom,” I intone.

She looks up with surprise. “Oh, hey, Kelly, let me call you back,” she says into the phone. “My son just walked in.” A pause. “Okay, talk later.”

Hanging up, she walks over and pulls me into a hug. I wrap my arms around her, noting how thin she’s gotten, even more so than usual. All this shit with James has her stressed, I’m sure. I feel bad for not checking on her more often.

Releasing her, I take a step back and raise a brow. “You’ve lost more weight. Are you eating, Mom?”

She waves off my concern like she always does. “I’m fine.” She grabs her cup of coffee from the espresso machine and takes a seat at the island. I open the fridge and pull out a couple of eggs, and the bacon she keeps for my dad.

“Not that you need a reason to stop by, but I usually don’t see you in the middle of the week.” She takes a sip of her triple espresso. “Everything okay?”

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