How was it possible to be surrounded by so many people but still feel completely alone?
It hadn’t always been that hectic or eventful. It was quieter in my younger years. Gentler moments could be plucked from my memory, when my parents were becoming savvier—the idea of politics was just taking hold. When it had all been grassroots and our involvement in the community didn’t feel like a game.
When the campaign trail became our way of life, everything began to blur. We were always on the road, in planes, visiting city after city, the skylines smudging in the background. I’d latch on to other politicians’ kids because they seemed to get it. Get me.
That was the exact reason Sebastian and I got along so well. At least in the beginning. He would have made a great politician. All charm and skill and bullshit. He knew how to build you up, and with the simple flick of an eyebrow, tear you back down. He could command a room just by stepping into it—and everyone gravitated to him like he was the fucking sun or something. Including me.
I’d lost my virginity to a senator’s daughter in the backseat of her daddy’s Range Rover. There was nothing romantic about it. We were both lonely and horny and fulfilling a need. By that time, Sebastian had taken the virtue of more than a few willing girls.
When I stepped inside the quiet of my parents’ home this morning, I realized we were completely alone, just the three of us. And now I’d welcome some sort of distraction. Because my parents had become strangers to me.
My mother was already dressed in her white pearls and crisp cardigan. It was a rarity to see her in anything other than a skirt. She was always on—as if a fucking camera were following her around, documenting her political life or something.
Was it any wonder how paranoid I’d become about revealing too much of myself to outsiders?
“Hi, honey,” she drawled, setting a steaming cup in front of my father, who was standing at the kitchen counter in his shirt and tie. “I laid out your best suit for the event.”
“Yep,” I mumbled and nudged past her to get to my room. But my father’s large hand latched on to my shoulder.
When I looked at him, I saw irritation hidden beneath his eyes. The same impatience I’d seen countless times when I didn’t do what was expected of me. “I hope you’ll have an attitude adjustment by the time we get to the dedication.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said, stepping out of his grasp.
“Don’t you think of anyone but yourself?” he growled. My shoulder slumped against the wall, my back to him. “He was your best friend. These people lost their child that night.”
My fingers balled into tight fists and I considered using them on him.
“Are you fucking kidding me—you think I don’t know that?” I turned to glare at him. “You think I don’t live with that every single day?”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me, young man,” my father said, his top lip quivering.
“Or what, Dad? What will you do to me?” I challenged him. “Take away my college funding?”
“Don’t get smart with me.” His voice had lowered, his anger taken down a notch. I had thrown him off by confronting him. He was unsure where this was headed. Good.
“You can’t punish me anymore than I’ve already punished myself,” I said, my rage deflating, sliding out of me into a puddle on the floor. To be quickly replaced by self-loathing. “I mean, shit, Dad. Almost every night, I consider driving myself off a bridge.”
My mother gasped, her hand crashing down on her mouth. And I’d admit, I liked hearing that sound. Of her being shocked. Maybe it meant she still cared.
If not, then maybe I’d done my job of ruining her perfect façade.
“Why would you say such a thing?” my mother said in a low and horrified voice. “What would be so bad that you’d want to tarnish our name?”
I snorted. It always came back to that: soiling our family’s Goddamn reputation.
“I took someone’s life that night, don’t you get it?” I threw the words in her face and it felt so damn good. So fucking perfect. “How do you think people see me? As a pathetic kid or a murderer?”
“Don’t you dare say that, Daniel Joseph.” She only used my middle name when she was serious. When something was important. “He did it—Jacob Matthews—that man who drove the truck. He admitted it and we took care of it.”
I hunched forward like I’d been punched in the gut. The air had trouble making its way down my lungs. I braced the wall and sucked it air.
“T . . . Tell me what happened that night,” I panted out. “The night all the adults met with Sebastian’s parents. What was said?”
“We won’t talk about that night,” my dad said, as if he was having trouble swallowing. “What’s done is done.”
“So it’s okay if your son—your only child—walks around with all of this guilt. Wants to kill himself for it. That’s fucked up, Dad.”
“Watch your mouth,” he muttered, more out of habit than anything else.
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Right, because not using profanity is so much more important than the truth.”
Mom and Dad shared a look. The same look I’d seen countless times when they were deciding whether I was mature enough, worthy enough, to be privy to their useless information. Then Mom gave Dad a slight nod, like they were letting me in. Letting their pathetic child inside their fucked-up lives with their fucked-up logic.
God, how the hell had I been able to stomach this for so long?
“Daniel,” my mom said. “Jacob Matthews admitted that he fell asleep at the wheel.”
My body became numb and my vision blurred, like I was in some fucked up Twilight Zone episode. That was the first I’d heard that version of the story. What the hell? I had the sensation of falling, falling, falling, down the side of a giant mountain.
“He was scared,” mom said. “He apologized to Sebastian’s parents, signed the plea agreement along with other legal documents, and we moved forward from there.”
I moved my lips in a fuzzy haze. “What you mean is . . . you paid people off so that the public didn’t hear about it again.”
“We did what we needed to do to protect our families,” she whispered. I saw how her hands shook as she gripped the counter. “We didn’t need that kind of publicity.”
My father took a step toward me and for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel the need to cower. I felt dead, numb—weightless, even. Like I’d just been gutted and my remains lay in a heap on the floor and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “You have nothing to feel guilty about, son.”
My gaze leveled on him. I could tell how uncomfortable I’d made him, glaring at him like that, but he didn’t look away.
“Don’t you get it?” my voice was soft, defeated even. “This entire time I thought you paid him off because it was my fault. You didn’t think I deserved to have that information?”
My hands tore through my hair as the resentment surged to a crescendo again. “You’re my parents, for God’s sake.”
A choking, garbled sound burst from my mother’s lips. “I . . . I wish I’d known you’d been suffering like this.” When I looked up at her, tears were spilling over her cheeks in waves.
But I couldn’t handle it. Not now. Maybe not ever.
It was too late.
I stormed down the hall to my room and slammed the door.