Page 51 of Saving the Halfback

Fuck. I took another drag, pulling it deep into my lungs, begging it to kick in quick. I had to learn more about Nolan’s relationship with his father first. Being thrown for another round of jail would be fine—hell, give me ten, twenty, life. At least what was mine would be safe.

But I don’t hurt what’s mine. I had to be sure getting rid of Rob wasn’t going to hurt Nolan—

Fuck! This damn mind. Here I was, full on planning a murder. So messed up. I kicked at a stone on the sidewalk.

Bailey, on the other hand. That fucker who hurt her had to die. I would bleed him dry for harming her. I didn’t know exactly what he’d done, but my mind was going mad with different scenarios. Why the fuck did she feel the need to submit?

As soon as I’d walked into my room after she dropped me off earlier that afternoon, I got on my computer and began looking up her father’s farm page. The McCormicks supplied most of the co-op supply chains, so they had a business website. I knew I was looking for a farm hand; it had to be a farm hand, since she had called him a cowboy. The moment I heard that word, I began obsessing over it. A cowboy. Not boy. Not a guy. A fucking cowboy, a fuckingman. I read between the lines and pulled out all I needed to understand this fucker had no right being around a fourteen-year-old.

There was nothing. A few pictures of the farms and anapply nowpage, but nomeet our teampage like I had hoped.

I shouldn’t have left her. We shouldn’t have left her.

As I took another toke, my shoulders sagged. I rolled the tension out of them, letting the darkness ebb. I knew I had a dopey smile on my face as I thought about Bailey.

I walked into the store, ignoring the closed sign. My mother kept her eyes on the computer in front of her, her blonde hair pulled back into a bun as she concentrated. My father wascounting out the cash register and looked up briefly as I entered. Gracie looked so much like him.

“Lock the door,” he said.

I turned around and flipped the lock, then walked by the front desk. Since our house was attached to the storefront, passing through the back door led into the back of our garage.

“Lachlan,” my mom whispered, holding out her hand, as if to touch my arm, but stopping and pulling back. It was something she did often. She wanted so desperately to reach out to me, but she didn’t know how. I understood. She knew the truth, not only about Claire, but also what happened in juvie. Though she’d witnessed the panic attacks, she’d only read reports on the fits of rage. On how many times I’d lost it whenever an inmate touched me, even slightly. She often moved to touch me, hug me, as she used to do. A mother to a son. Only, now she wasn’t sure how much of her son was left. “How was school?” she asked, her voice timid.

“Good, Mom.”

Her eyes searched my face before she nodded. “Gracie has friends over. Can you…” She struggled.

“Not let them see me high?” I deadpanned. “Hide away in my room, as if I don’t exist?” Some of Gracie’s friends weren’t even allowed at our house. My earlier smile disappeared as coldness seeped in.

Mom hated me. Hated what her child had become. If only she knew how dark the thoughts got without the substance she hated oh so much. Then she would realize I would’ve never been like them. Never soft and gentle like her and Gracie, not as obedient and strong as my older brother, never chivalrous and honorable like my father. I was the opposite of them all.

My mother winced and looked away from me, not able to meet my eyes any longer. “I’ll stay in my room.”

She didn’t try to stop me, correct me, or call out to me as I left. I was okay with that. I had made peace with the fact I was someone neither of my parents wanted me to become. I understood that some people would only ever know half my story and despise me for it.

On my way to my room, I stopped in the kitchen and quickly grabbed a couple snacks and a drink, avoiding running into any of my sister’s little friends. When I got to my room, though, I threw everything onto the bed and pulled a small black box out from under it.

It was my stash. I unlocked it and began rolling another joint. I didn’t need it right now, still riding the gentle high from the one I had just finished, but I was getting it ready. It was the weekend, and I was going to toe that fine line between utterly baked and somewhat functional.

I could hear my therapist's voice as I rolled.Make sure, after you do your coping strategy, take a pause and think about what has set you off.

I shook my head. “So much shit,” I told my freshly rolled joint.

So much was going on. I had a fear of loss. Loss of myself if I let the darkness within take over. Also, loss of others. I had only just gotten Bailey back. She was so different and yet so familiar and so lost, I had the urge to protect her. That need to protect particularly brought out my darkness.

I used to think of the darkness as self-preservation. A coping strategy my mind developed as a need to protect myself from the trauma I had endured. But then…I felt it today with Bailey, and again with Nolan. That fear of losing them, of them being injured, rolling into the need to protect them.

I smoked to silence the darkness because, at times, the voice of the Dark was manic and unhinged. I smoked to calm him,scared if I didn’t control those voices, eventually, they would sound like logic…and it was hard to argue with logic.

I pulled my phone out and went to Bailey’s contact. I had a picture of her laughing with Nolan. Those two. They did something to me.

What if that guy, the cowboy, she talked about was still there? What if he lurked outside her bedroom window, watching? Waiting?

Lachlan:Hey.

The little iconshowed that the message was delivered but not read. I let the smoke out slowly and sank back down into my chair. I itched to talk to someone. I needed a distraction before this turned into an obsession.

Bailey wasn’t responding, and Nolan was running. There was only one other option.

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