Page 76 of Breaking the Sinner

“Yeah?”

“Why do you live with those guys if you don’t like them?”

The question came like a punch in the gut. “I like them fine.”

“But you wouldn’t even let me in the door.”

“They’re not always nice.”

“So why do you live with them?”

He swallowed. “We’ve been friends for a long time. I met them when I went through some bad shit.” They’d all been in the same foster home together. And the three of them had escaped together, too. Started selling drugs together. Found an apartment together. Entered adulthood together. “They were there for me. And we sorta…grew up together.”

“He that walks with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “That’s from the Bible.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

“What do you think about it?”

He stared at the ceiling. He thought she had a point. But he didn’t know how to make her understand.

“A guy like me…doesn’t have a lot of options.” It was the only thing that made sense to say. Because it was true, and because it was easier that way.

“You have a great option at the gym,” she said, her voice diaphanous and distant. “So why would you run away from that?”

This marked the umpteenth time she’d come back to this point. She wasn’t going to let it go. And maybe admitting this part about himself might help her get the picture. Part of it, at least.

“The gym won’t ever keep me on as a trainer,” he said, his throat gravelly and dry, “because I won’t pass the trainer exam.”

“But you haven’t even taken it.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t have the requirements to even take it.”

She stayed quiet for a long time. “I don’t follow.”

“I never graduated from high school. And I never went to college. So I’m disqualified, Gen. I can’t even fucking try.”

Her chest rose and fell, eyelashes brushing the tops of her cheeks. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was sleeping.

“Can’t you go for one of those diploma programs?”

“It’s been too long. I probably wouldn’t pass.”

“You’re smarter than most high school graduates,” she countered. “You’re smarter than I am, and I even got my diploma through my homeschooling program. You’re smarter than most college kids.”

“You’re just saying that because you like me,” he whispered into her ear.

She grinned but didn’t open her eyes. “I do. I like you so much.”

He rested his chin on her shoulder, watching her. He’d drawn her multiple times by now, but his fingers itched for another depiction. She was the best subject matter.

“I like you too, Red.”Likeseemed like a pitiful understatement. But he couldn’t go farther than that. “You’re gonna make some guy really happy someday.”

A ridge formed in her brow. Her throat bobbed again, but she didn’t open her eyes.

Her voice came out a hoarse whisper. “Why can’t that guy be you?”

Here it was. The beating heart of the matter. This, he couldn’t admit to. It would send her running. Ruin the times theyhadshared. Make her see him as a freak. His past had solidified into an immutable version of himself. Like a statue. Memorializing his dark past: Cobra, the fucked-up guy with a murderer mother, orphaned and alone, uneducated and undeserving.

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