Song of the Fireflies(51)
Author: J.A. Redmerski

“A cliff. Overlooking the river. It was an accident.”

Tate got off the couch and came toward me. Bray continued to sob into my shirt.

“What the hell are you gonna do, man?” He looked truly concerned and not at all accusing or put off, as I expected them all to be. Maybe he understood more than I knew, having to deal with his own issues with Caleb. “Seriously. I’m not going to judge you, but shit, man, you know they’ll catch you.” I saw him glance over at Bray. He knew this was all about her. He looked back at me. Sympathetically. I wondered what he was really thinking, but then thought it better that I didn’t know. Because I had a pretty good idea and I didn’t like it.

“We don’t know yet,” I answered.

Bray couldn’t take anymore. She broke away from me and ran back into the office and closed herself inside. I started to go after her, but I needed to deal with Tate and everyone else first.

I looked at Tate.

“Better cut them loose,” Caleb warned from behind. “We’ve got enough shit to deal with.”

Tate looked back. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said reproachfully. “We’ve got enough to deal with because of the shit you got us into. I love you, little brother, but you’re the last person in this room to be talkin’.”

I really appreciated Tate for that.

“I hate to say this,” Tate went on, looking at me again, “but Caleb’s not too far off the mark.”

“I know,” I said. “And I don’t expect you to keep us around anymore. If it was me, I know I wouldn’t.”

“So then what are you going to do?” Jen asked.

“Well, they definitely can’t stay here,” Adam said, looking more nervous every time my eyes passed over him. “And I’m sorry, but the sooner you two leave the better. I’m not trying to be a dick, but—”

I put up my hand. “No, Adam, you’re right. No hard feelings.”

I looked around at everyone else. “But I just hope you all believe that it was an accident. We could never do anything like that on purpose, not even out of anger.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’ ” Jen said. She got off the couch and stood next to Tate.

I nodded. “Yeah, uhh—”

“They were both there,” Tate stepped in. I saw a warning look hidden in his eyes. He was covering for me, and I was surprised by this. “It was Bray’s accident, but Elias saw it happen, so he’s calling it ‘their’ accident. I’d do the same thing.” He shrugged.

I thanked him with a private look.

“You knew about this?” Jen asked.

“No,” Tate said. “It was just a wild guess.” Then he said looking back at me, “Am I right?”

I nodded.

“Look,” Tate went on. “I would help you get back, but all of my extra cash flow is going to the Caleb Fuck-Up Fund—”

I shook my head at him, waving a hand in front of me in refusal. “No, I wouldn’t take your money anyway. You’ve done enough already by letting us hang around the past couple of weeks. I have money in the bank and I intend to pay you back every dime. I’ve just been afraid to access my account.” I inhaled a deep breath and glanced at the floor in thought for a moment. “Bray and I were going to figure out what to do within the next three days and then, whether we came up with anything or not, we were going to go back to Georgia.”

“What could you possibly do other than just turn yourself in?” Jen asked.

It was a fair question.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t. Maybe I’ll call my father and see about getting a good lawyer. I just… don’t know.” And it was the truest thing I had said in days. Sure, I could go back to Georgia and say I witnessed the accident, but any other ideas continued to elude me, and it seemed as if they always would. But the part of me that wanted to do everything in my power to help Bray wouldn’t let me believe that. So I stuck to my three-day rule. I thought that maybe by some miraculous chance a better idea would fall into my lap and blindside me out of nowhere. Not likely, but possible.

Tate reached into Jen’s purse on the side table nearby and took out a pack of cigarettes. He tapped the end of the pack with his finger, and a cigarette shot out the open end. He had it between his lips and lit seconds later. He smoked too much.

“Shit, Tate,” Adam argued from the side. “Not in the house.”

“Oh, sorry, man,” Tate said and started to head to the back door just a few feet away that led out onto the porch. He drew his head back, indicating for me to follow, then he said to Jen, “Baby, get your stuff ready. I don’t want you to miss your plane.”

I left the den and went outside with Tate. “Where’s Jen going?” I asked.

“I got her a plane ticket back to Miami,” he said, and took a long pull from his cigarette. He sat against the concrete porch railing. “She starts a new job in two days. But she didn’t want to go with me to Texas, anyway. And I wouldn’t have let her.”

I figured that must have been why he didn’t leave early this morning like he had planned: he wanted to wait until after she got on her plane.

“Why don’t you just tell Caleb to leave what drugs he has left on him here so you two can fly to Texas? Corpus Christi is a long drive.”

Tate flicked his ashes over the porch. He was slow to answer, which made me think there was more to it.

“I guess since you’re not exactly a threat to Caleb anymore, you being in more shit than even he’s in, then it’s OK I tell you that he’s still on parole and isn’t supposed to leave Florida. He could go right back to prison if they ever found out he was in Virginia. It’s the main reason why we’ve been driving everywhere.”

“Geez, what did he do?”

“Sentenced to five years for rape. Only served two, and he’s on a five-year parole.”

I blinked. “He raped a girl?” I couldn’t believe it. Caleb was a dick, sure, but I never would’ve taken him for the type.

Tate shook his head. “My brother didn’t rape that girl. And before you think I’m just backing him because he’s my brother, I know he isn’t like that, and I know for a fact he didn’t do it. That bitch fessed up to someone my sister, Everly, knows. She admitted that she’d lied just to get back at Caleb.” He shook his head and ground his teeth together behind his tightly clamped jaw. “Caleb told me everything. He was going through a bad breakup with his girlfriend, Cera. He got shitfaced one night, met this girl at a party, one thing led to another, and he f**ked her. Well, Caleb felt like shit the next day for sleeping with her. He loved Cera. So, when he told this girl it was just a one-time thing, apparently she didn’t like that much. My brother was loyal to Cera.” He pointed at me as if to underline what he’d just said. “That might not seem like him, loyal, but he loved her. He was going to marry her. Anyway, that bitch got pissed off because he wouldn’t acknowledge they were ‘together’ ”—he quoted with his fingers—“so she cried rape. Claimed she regretted it after the alcohol wore off, but by then she was too afraid to tell the truth because then charges could be pressed against her.” He hopped up on top of the concrete railing and let his legs dangle over the side.