Page 80 of Girl Violence

She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks down at her hands. “I feel like we’re not going to have an ending, regardless of everything that’s happened.”

“You want an ending with me?”

Her chest feels funny. Vulnerable. Like she’s scared about saying the next words even though it’s something she wants and needs to admit out loud. “I’m not sure it’s what you want to hear, but yeah, I do. I want something with you.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to hear it. I just... I wanted to avoid going this deep with you because we can’t go back if we go there. You know that, right? You’re going to know everything about me. About what I did in London.” He looks at her, his eyes a shade darker but also wary. “No more secrets. You hated seeing me like that before with Ian, but I’ve done worse things.”

“I can take it,” Josette insists, even though she isn’t sure she can. Something she knows he’s not sure of himself by the way he’s looking at her. But this is Vince, and these feelings for him refuse to go away, so it must mean something.

Theymust mean something.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and she nods. Knowing she won’t back down from this, he sighs and sits up straighter. “If I’m going to tell you shit, I have to start from the beginning. So, I hated London when I first moved. I missed you and home. I missed this stupid town if you can believe it. The place we moved into wasn’t special, and I just remember being alone because they both worked. Whenever we had a family thing, they’d argue, or he’d criticize me for no reason. It was the same thing, and I started to care less. The real reason I didn’t contact you was because I was embarrassed about how shit things were. I made out like I was moving away, and things were going to be great when it turned out to be a nightmare.”

“I can understand that.”

“When I went to school, I made friends with people who didn’t care either. After I first caught my dad with that girl, I started drinking with them. I wasn’t a nice person most of that time. I was angry and lost and got into fights for no reason, hooking up with girls I felt nothing for. And that’s the thing. Ifeltnothing, and it was like that for years.”

He inhales deeply, and all Josette can do is sit and listen, tears welling in her eyes because she can see his pain as clear as day, knowing this is something he’s kept to himself for a long time. This is something he’s told no one else.

“That was until I met Chris. He was a little older than me, but he was the only one out of the group that I got on with. We had each other’s backs. It was like what we had, but different. I could escape to his house, and for a while, that was okay. But that’s when I met Chris’ sister—”

“Elizabeth,” Josette says knowingly, and he nods. “I was wondering when she was going to come up.”

“I ignored her at first, but she kept insisting she had feelings for me. It got harder to ignore, especially when she kept kissing me whenever I was hanging out with Chris.” Josette looks away. She doesn’t know what’s coming but hearing him talk about her is hard. “I knew Chris would kill me if I ever went near her, but I did anyway, maybe because I still didn’t care, and a part of me wanted him to beat the shit out of me. I started seeing her in secret behind his back, and I don’t know why. We didn’t have anything in common.”

“You must have liked something about her.”

He gives her an uncomfortable look. “I liked what every other guy liked about her, Josette. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.”

She nods. She’s an idiot. “Right…”

“As far as everything else about her, there was nothing there. Chris got suspicious a few times, making me feel like shit because it got deep with us. He trusted me more than anybody else. I tried to avoid it, but a few months later, I caught my dad cheating the second time. I trashed all the cars in the car park at the college, and I was caught and arrested. My mum freaked, and dad was pissed, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want me to expose his secret, so he paid everyone off. As punishment, he took my car from me. This car. I only got it back because he didn’t want to pay for it anymore. His girlfriend is high maintenance.” He turns to look out of the window when a blast of wind shakes the car again. A shiver rolls down Josette’s spine, and she looks around, seeing nothing and no one.

“She wasn’t at the funeral.”

“No…” he says. “She refused to go because my mum was there.”

“Carry on with the story.”

“I got out of jail with a slap on the wrist, and I went to another party. I didn’t want to go home because I knew dad started bringing her back there when my mum worked. Elizabeth wanted to tell everyone we were together even though we weren’t. I told her not to say anything because of her brother. He was already losing his shit because she kept posting pictures of us on social media. She caused a scene anyway, and Chris found out the hard way. He...” Vince closes his eyes, and Josette’s eyebrows knit together when she sees his guilt. “The look he gave me, I haven’t forgotten it. He stormed off and got into his car. I tried to stop him because he’d been drinking, but he wouldn’t stop or listen. That was the last time I saw him. He collided with another car a few blocks away and died. Because of me.” Josette’s heart sinks deep when he turns to look at her. And his dad has just died near enough the same way. “Am I someone you still want an ending with?”

Josette swallows hard, the truth a bitter concoction sitting on her tongue. That was a lot to take in, and she can guess the rest. That guilt made Vince be on and off with Elizabeth because she was his only link to Chris, which she’s sure Elizabeth played on.

“That person wasn’t you, Vince,” she says finally. “I’m sorry you had to be him.”

He breathes a laugh. “That’s a cop-out, and you know it.”

“It’s not.” She doesn’t know what she’s feeling about everything he told her, but she knows he can’t blame himself for Chris dying. “What do you want me to say? Sit here and tell you what a terrible person you are? That what you did was selfish and wrong? I won’t. We’ve all been selfish and done stupid things. What happened to Chris wasn’t your fault. He chose to drive drunk.”

“Which wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t found out I was fucking his sister,” he says through gritted teeth, and she winces. “I might as well have put the keys in his hand. He knew I didn’t even like her and was just using her. Then he thought I was just using him to get to her—”

“You tried to stop him.”

“I knew what I was doing and did it anyway.”

Josette sighs. “We’re all allowed to make mistakes. How else do we learn?”

“Christ, you sound like a quote off Pinterest.” Josette pushes her fingers through her hair because she knows she does, but she doesn’t know what he’s expecting from her. What she feels is sad. Sad that he had to go through so much because he didn’t know what else to do. Because he had no one. As tragic as it is losing a friend because of it, Josette can’t see him as the bad person he’s painted himself to be. Not when she knows all his sides now, and he isn’t that person.

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