Page 2 of All In Good Time

She swallowed something heavy and bitter that caused her words to come out quiet and shaky. “I did it to help you.”

He laughed a laugh so unhinged, she flinched, and her back hit something smooth and cool. She hadn’t realized she was already backed against the bleachers.

“I didn’t fucking ask you to help me!” His scream burst over her face, and she whimpered.

Part of her expected him to grab her again, but all that was left was a cold space where he had been, and he was back against the opposite red brick wall, leaning forward, as if he might be sick.

She usually knew how to handle these situations, but now she was unsure.

She reached out her hand and laid it warily against his shirt, which had become damp in just the past few seconds.

He flinched when touched, and in a second, was on the other side of the hidden area behind the bleachers.

“Derek—”

“Get away from me.”

Her heart shattered. “Derek—”

“I never want to fucking see you again. You arenothingto me.”

A deep shuddering flinch racked her entire body, and she stumbled back a few steps. Derek was scared.

He had always been scared—but what she did had brought it all to the surface. He was scared of what his dad would do once he found out someone had been told. Scared of how people would look at him once they realized where those bruises came from. Scared of everything there was.

She knew all this. He had told her these things in the dark of the night, when he couldn’t even see her face in the forest or her bedroom. The only times he could truly open up were when it was too dark to see anything else.

But she had brought all those fears to reality. He had trusted her more than anyone else in the world, and by making that call, she had committed the ultimate betrayal.

“Get out.”

2

September 1985 | After

Derek was not at school the next day. Or the next. Or the next.

Derek Stokes had vanished.

She only knew he wasn’t just avoiding her, because Mal had shown up at her house in the evening two days after it happened, panting and red-faced from running.

“Mal.” She took in Derek’s younger stepsister’s appearance and led her into the house, closing the door. It echoed slightly off the walls; the way doors only do in an empty house. It did that even when her mom was home, but since it was just Becca alone with Mal it resonated a little louder. “What’s wrong?”

Mal took a few heavy breaths, then tears started to pour down her tan face. “Do you know where Derek is?”

Becca furrowed her brows. After that day behind the bleachers, she had done the last real thing she could for Derek and just stayed away from him. She hadn’t tried to reach out. Hadn’t tried to explain her side anymore. As far as she knew, Derek simply wasn’t coming to school.

“He’s not at home? I thought he was there.”

“He hasn’t been home in a few days.” Mal’s voice choked as she said it. She sat on the couch and buried her face in her palms. That’s when Becca saw the marks on her wrist, bruised and angry. “Mark’s real mad too.”

Becca felt like she was back on that forest road a year ago, when she had first met Derek sitting on the side of the street. Middle of the chilly autumn and he had a bloody nose and bruised face left behind by his father Mark. She blinked and shook away the memory.

Sickening guilt started to build in her stomach. She should have checked in on him, should have at least tried to figure out how he was doing instead of avoiding him. She should have made sure everything was okay for him and Mal. That was the point of her reaching out to someone in the first place, she’d wanted to help them both.

“What happened?” Her voice shook as she gently grabbed onto Mal’s wrist and pulled the sleeve up to expose the full extent of the bruise. Long, thick, dark lines wrapped around the entirety of it. Becca’s breath caught, and she thought she might puke. She was asking the obvious. If Derek had not been home since she told him, Mark needed someone else to turn his attention to when he was angry.

“Someone came to the house a few days ago after school. They were asking questions about Derek and me, asking if we liked it in Highburg. If everything was okay.” She paused to sniffle a bit and pulled her arm out of Becca’s hand. She pulled the sleeve down and grasped it in her fingers to hide the array of reds and blues and purples. “After they left, Mark was pissed, throwing things around. Then he realized Derek wasn’t home and started asking me what was going on. I didn’t know, so…” She shrugged, her eyes stuck on the wood-paneled walls as her hand picked at a frayed thread from her denim jacket. “Whatever. I just need to find Derek.”

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