Page 100 of Forever After All

Jess’s gaze locked with his. They’d keep the mountain lion encounter to themselves for a while. “Thanks.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Jess started laughing. She tried to control it at first, then the sounds bubbled out.

“What are you laughin’ about?”

She wiped her eyes and gasped for breath. “I was just thinking about naming my son after my dad.”

“I thought you didn’t like your dad.” At least she hadn’t had anything good to say about him. And thinking about Jess with a little boy was treading into dangerous waters.

“I couldn’t stand him. I would never name my kid after him. I couldn’t call my kid Oscar with a straight face.”

Linc sat up straighter. “What’s wrong with Oscar?”

She shook her hands. “Nothing. It just sounds like an adult name. People like to give babies nicknames, and I have no idea what cutesy name they’d come up with for Oscar.”

“I didn’t know your dad’s name,” Linc said.

Jess’s giggles were wearing off. They were probably induced by lack of sleep. “I don’t like talking about him.”

Linc didn’t blame her. He’d heard a few stories, and none of them were good.

“He thought I was a waste of space because I was a girl. He wanted boys for free labor. He had half a dozen illegal side jobs, and he needed the extra hands. He did get some use out of me. I was his punching bag when he got mad.”

She said the words like she was detailing the weather forecast, but all of the blood drained from Linc’s face. “He what?”

“Brett always tried to help me.” She scoffed. “How do you think he learned how to fight? He wasn’t scared of anything, even back then.”

“I’m glad he’s dead,” Linc said through gritted teeth.

“You and me both. Apparently, he was cheating on his wife too because I have a sister to show for it. He was just a terrible man. He thought the world was his playground.”

Linc felt that stab like it was meant for him. He’d treated the world like it was his in the past. He knew how easy it was to fall into the arrogant idea that he ran the place and no one could stop him.

The stupid ideology of a kid with too much anger and a big imagination.

“I don’t know my dad’s name,” Linc said to change the subject.

“Really? Not at all?”

“Nope. I don’t know my mom’s either.”

“Do you wish you knew?” she asked.

“What would it matter? They didn’t want me, so I figured it wouldn’t do me any good to want them.”

Jess leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “What was it like in the foster system?”

“That’s not a fair question because I abused it as much as I could. I knew all of those families were either in it for the check or really trying to make a difference in kids’ lives, but I treated them all the same. I did everything I could to make their lives harder.”

“Why?” Jess asked quietly.

He didn’t miss the note of sadness in her voice, and his confession felt more like a slow and painful death. “I didn’t understand love, and I didn’t recognize it when it was standing in front of me. Every time the families were good to me, I assumed they would be the ones to hurt me the most. I didn’t trust anyone, and it was easier to push them away than sit quietly and get hurt again.”

Linc huffed, and his warm breath billowed out like a cloud into the cold night. “I know you don’t get it. I don’t either. I was always mad, and it felt good to let the anger out.”

“I’ve been angry,” Jess said. “A lot. Mostly at myself. I don’t know when I can trust people, so I keep testing them, but the tests never end and sometimes the trust never comes, even if they do everything right.”

Linc looked up at her. She was bundled in a blanket near the fire, and he imagined her as a kid asking a grown-up to explain trust. It wasn’t one of those black or white concepts that Jess understood.

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