Romi
"You have to fight back against him, Romi," Presley said as he helped me to my feet. "This torment has gone on long enough." Grabbing my bag off the ground, he dusted it off before handing it back to me. "He's a goddamn liability."
"He's just hurting," I replied quietly, following him across the lot to his Mercedes. "I don’t blame him, Pres."
I really didn’t. Sketch was damaged and, in a way, he always had been. The death of his brother had catapulted him to a place I doubted anyone could reach him.
He was so blinded by his grief, drowning so deeply in his feelings that I knew he couldn't think clearly.
It didn’t excuse him for pushing and shoving me around.
It just meant that I understood his pain.
I felt it daily.
"Bullshit," Presley countered, pressing a button on his key fob that caused the sleek, red convertible to light up. "He put his hands on you." Yanking the passenger door open, he gestured for me to climb inside before rounding the hood of the car and climbing into the driver's seat. "Chris would lose his mind if he knew you were being treated like this."
"Chris is gone." Setting my bag next to my feet, I fastened my seatbelt and clasped my hands together, movements rigid. "I couldn’t help him then and he can't help me now."
"You didn’t kill him," Presley shot back coolly as he started the engine and pulled out of his parking space. "And it's high time that douchebag brother of his came to terms with that."
"Perception is a person's reality," I whispered, cringing at the thought. "You know that, Pres. You’re the one obsessed with psychology."
"Well, Sketch Capaldi's perception of life is so screwed up and warped that no amount of Dr. Phil re-runs can help me figure him out," Presley countered with a huff. "Goddamn." Tightening his hold on the wheel with one hand, he pushed his brown hair from his eyes with the other. "I don’t get that guy, Romi. I really don’t," he admitted. "You three were inseparable. He fucking adored the ground you walked on for as long as I can remember. How can he turn on you like that?"
"Because his brother is dead," I replied, numb. "And I'm responsible."
Presley cast me a sideways glance that screamed bullshit, but he didn’t say anything else.
Like me and Sketch, Presley and Chris had been joined at the hip since kindergarten. They had always shared this amazing bond and even when Chris and I went on dates, nine times out of ten, Presley tagged along with a date of his own.
When Chris passed away, Presley was beyond devastated, but he was the only one of our friends that hadn't automatically turned on me.
He never questioned my account of that night's events and he never once called me a killer.
Instead, he continued to offer me friendship by visiting me in juvie.
He didn’t see me as a murderer.
Just Romi.
A burning curiosity simmered inside of me; one that insisted I pick Quinton Presley's brain and demand to know what secrets of Chris's he kept tucked away in his brilliant mind.
The only thing holding me back from doing just that was knowing that he would demand my secrets in return and I couldn’t do that.
"Sketch is safe. He and Presley are about the only two people I'm sure we can trust…"
I was convinced that Presley knew more than he let on, but I couldn’t risk asking him and exposing myself in the process.
Chris might have trusted him, and Presley had always been kind to me, but I was still on the fence, with a death grip on the purse strings that contained my diminishing supply of trust.
"I'm sorry about your face," I told him, grimacing when my eyes landed on the nasty swelling under his right eye. His jaw was red and puffy, too. The boy was going to have a real bad shiner for a week or so – curtesy of Sketch Capaldi and his swinging fists.
"I'm just glad that I had my contacts in today," was his breezy reply. "Don’t worry. It looks worse than it feels."
"You shouldn’t stick up for me," I whispered. "Not when it comes to Sketch. You know how he sees things, Pres." I shrugged weakly. "Everything is black and white to him. Defending me makes you a target, too. It makes you his enemy."
"I can handle Sketch," Chris replied with a shrug. "And unlike him, I have the ability to look beyond the rumors. I happen to hold the clarity to see through the bullshit and possess the composure and self-restraint to find the truth without beating on terrified little girls."
I stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I see you, Romi Dillon." He looked me right in the eyes. "And I know you're not a killer."
I shook my head. "I…I…Pres, I…"
"Don’t worry," he replied. "You'll get your words out when you're ready." He turned his attention back to the road. "And your memories."
Yeah, Quinton Presley knew far more than he was letting on.