"The only thing you seem to struggle with is me."
"Well, that's just normal. And expected."
"Funny."
I winked. “Look, it's true, but it's not just you. There's shit in my life that you haven't seen, alright? Things that bother me, things that I guess you could say haunt me or plague me."
He stared at me for a moment, chewing his bottom lip before shrugging. "Like your dad?"
It wasn't what I was expecting him to say, and I didn't think I could be blamed for stiffening at the reminder. “That...yeah, okay. Sure, that's one thing. You really decided to go right for the throat, didn't you?"
To his credit, his wince was as open as it was genuine as far as I could tell. "Wasn't trying to. But it's something you never talk about. Even when your sister brings it up, you immediately find a way to avoid the topic."
"Boy," my tone was drier than any desert. "I can't imagine why I wouldn't want to talk about it. I don't see you offering up personal insights into what it was like growing up with your parents. Feel like sharing?"
He rolled his eyes. “See? Now you're just turning it on me instead."
My lip curled. “What do you want me to say, Jace? I lost my dad. I got to watch him die, alright? I got to see him be just fine, and then the next thing I know, he's this...barely alivethinghooked up to all these machines. Everyone wanted me to stick around, to say goodbye, but there were no goodbyes. There was only staring at the thing that used to be my father, and watching until he finally just...died. What was I going to do? Tell something that couldn't respond? That didn't think or feel anymore? Everyone's so worried about my closure, but no one wants to consider that there was never going to be closure. You don't just say goodbye to your dad's body, because that's all he was in the end, a corpse with a pulse. There is no goodbye to that shit, alright?"
He stared at me impassively for a moment and then nodded. "I guess I can't really argue with you. When my parents died...it was like being freed. It's when they were alive that haunts me."
"I guess there's no real way for either of us to know which one is better or worse. Being haunted by losing them too early, or losing them too late."
"I don't think either way is better or worse; they're both bad. Just in different ways."
There was truth to that, but I was still irritated that he had decided it was important that I talk about my father. "So?"
"What?"
"Did it make you feel better? Hearing about my dad dying?"
"Better? No."
"Then why ask?"
"I thought there wasn't a point in trying to understand things?"
Oh, right, I'd forgotten how clever he thought he was on occasion. "Alright, fuck you. Go pass out again."
I wasn't surprised to see the flash of anger, but it was the hurt under the surface that took me by surprise first. More shockingwas the way he turned his face away, nostrils flaring, and a twist to his lip, but...no comment, no comeback, no telling me to go fuck myself. Instead, he stared down at the street below, and though it was empty save for a plastic bag caught in the wind, shimmying down the sidewalk, he looked enraptured by it.
"You never asked me what happened. Why I got suspended from the force," he said slowly.
"You didn't seem like you wanted to talk about it," I said, having enough sense to bite down on the rest of the sentence. Because I clearly hadn’t wanted to mention my father, which was a wound that never stopped hurting. But I kept that to myself, because I could see something opening up behind his eyes as he prepared to say something he probably hadn't said to anyone else.
"The man, he...the guy there," his eyes flicked up toward the buildings across from us, most of them dark save for a couple where soft light radiated from inside the rooms. If he was looking for someone to save him, the only person around right now was him...well, and the stoners, but they had moved back inside. "He was...he was raping her. And I'm guessing he had been doing it for quite a while. I don't know if one of the women there was her mother or not, but...neither of them cared."
It was more or less what I suspected had happened, but being right didn't magically make my stomach turn any more gently. I hadn't experienced firsthand the foulness that sat at the hearts of humanity, but I was sure Jace had. I wasn't stupid. In a lot of ways, my devil may care attitude and general acceptance of the twists of fate inoculated me against the horrors of the world. Sometimes you didn't need to experience the awful things in life to find a way to deal with its existence, and in some ways, accept it before it found a way to burrow under your skin.
Inoculation wasn't the same as immunity, though, and for all my ability to roll with things, even the bad, I still reeled at thethought. It was a horrid feeling, full of painful confusion that sat with you for days as you tried to understand just how twisted people could be, at their refusal to acknowledge, or worse, enjoy the pain one human could inflict on another. Yet I welcomed it in a quiet way, because it proved, to me at least, that even my blasé attitude didn't equate to a heartless one. I still had humanity, empathy, and love in me, even if sometimes people thought otherwise, and all because I felt the cocktail I'd made before coming out onto the balcony swirl in my stomach at the thought of what that stranger had done to some poor girl.
"You kill him?" I asked softly, not sure which answer would get the stronger reaction out of me.
"No," he said softly. "Put him in the hospital, though. Gave him one hell of a concussion, broke a handful of ribs, his wrist, dislocated his shoulder, and they weren't sure if there was going to be brain damage or not."
"More than there already was, you mean," I said, trying to keep my voice neutral so he could get through his story without being influenced by my mood, but knowing I failed at the sound of bubbling revulsion. "He deserved it, you know that?"
"He deserved to have someone come in and wake him up so he could watch as they slowly cut his dick off and fed him his balls," Jace growled, and confusing relief washed through me. Only then to realize he had been telling the story in a colorless, flat voice that had been so alien to him that its presence highlighted the strength he normally spoke with. Sure, that strength usually came across as anger and irritation, but it was still strong, full of conviction and confidence. To hear that strength come back in anger over something that was a crime against humanity, alittlehuman no less, made him sound more like himself, and it soothed the sharper edges of my anger and disgust. "But?—"
