That was what was great about Chris, I felt like I could talk to him about anything.
“And why is that?”
That was a good question.
I was always honest with him and I didn’t want to change that now.
“While I was away, I wrote to him. Sometimes he wrote me back.” I let out a little, huffed laugh. I hadn’t told Chris about the letters before, I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t. But I guess I was telling him now. I hoped he wasn’t going to make a big deal about it. “Actually, it took a long time for him to start writing me back. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but he has kind of been a little standoffish since I’ve been back. I haven’t really seen much of him.”
Chris inhaled deeply. After holding it in for a moment, he slowly let it out.
I didn’t know what that meant.
“Honestly, I’m not really sure what is up with him lately.”
My shoulders sagged at his words. I wanted more than anything to make sure Mouse was doing alright. Like he had done for me many times.
“He seems to be going through something but I don’t have a clue what. He’s…”
“He’s what?” I asked a little too eagerly.
“He’s been a little distant.” Chris set down the knife he was using to cut the lettuce for a salad, I assumed. “Look, Ingram. I don’t want to shelter you and treat you like you can’t handle things, but sometimes there are things I can’t talk to you about. Things Ky can’t talk to you about.”
I blinked at him.
Dr. Walsher’s words and worries came floating into my head. The ones she’d said in our last session.
“Does this have to do with the club?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he told me bluntly.
While I didn’t let myself admit it, I had this deep feeling like the club wasn’t simply just a bunch of guys that liked to ride bikes.
In fact, though we’d never talked about it in great detail, I suspected that Ky had killed our parents and Timothy that night. I should have felt a little saddened by the fact that the man that was Chry’s father would never meet his son, but when I ran from that place, I knew I’d never want Timothy in our lives, ever.
Did I think less of him for it? I didn’t think so. I didn’t even hate him for it. The moment I decided to run from that place, I left them behind. And now that I had more knowledge of how wrongly I had been raised, I didn’t even feel sad about it.
I wasn’t sure what that made me but I also didn’t care.
“Were things not good while I was gone?” I asked.
Chris stayed silent for a long time, his eyes a little unfocused.
“No, Ingram, they weren’t.” There was a thickness in his tone and I knew he was sad and maybe a little mad about the things that had happened.
“But you can’t talk about it?” I asked because I was trying to understand it all.
“No, I can’t talk about it. I won’t. And neither will Ky or anyone else,” he answered as his eyes looked into mine. There was a softness there and I knew he wasn’t mad at me. In fact, I got the feeling that he kind of hated the fact that he couldn’t tell me about it. “There are things you need to know…”
“About the club?” I asked before he could try to finish. I could tell he was struggling a little. I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable but at the same time, I kind of needed to know the rules of this world. Which sounded weird, but I think that I understood the club life was different from the rest of the world. And since this was my home, I needed to know all about it.
“Yes,” he answered.
So then he filled me in on the whole thing. Basically, there are a lot of things that will never be said out loud. Many things that I will never know. The club was first and foremost a group of brothers and only ones inside that inner circle would ever know everything. People like Chris, Cami, Laurel, and myself were considered family but ‘club business’ was never discussed with us. He didn’t outright say it, but I suspected that the Steel Paragons Motorcycle Club was possibly into things that might have been considered illegal in this world.
Maybe I wasn’t as blind as I thought I was because I had this feeling that the club didn’t exactly play by the rules of normal society.
But did that make them bad? I didn’t think so. I saw how kind they were to me. I saw the love they had for everyone they surrounded themselves with. So how could they be bad?
