Page 58 of Jar of Hearts
“It’s not that I don’t think I can move past it,” she says. “It’s that Ididmove past it. I think everyone might have forgiven me back then had I told the truth right away, and had I turned Calvin in right after it happened. I was sixteen, only a kid, and kids make mistakes. But what upsets people isn’t just what I did that night. It’s that I had theaudacityto go on with my life. I went to college, climbed the corporate ladder, bought a nice car, got myself a rich fiancé. I built a successful lifeon top ofthe shitty, horrific thing I did. Without owning up to it. Without paying for it first. That’s what people can’t forgive. And I understand it, I really do. Because it’s almost as terrible as the thing I actually did.”
“Wow.” Kaiser lets out a long breath. “That’s pretty fucking self-aware.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” she says. “It’s my fault more women are dead. It’s my fault that little boy is dead.”
“You couldn’t have known he would go on to do those things,” Kaiser says. “You didn’t know who Calvin was. Back then,hemight not even have known who he was.”
Geo searches Kaiser’s face for any hint of sarcasm or condescension and finds none. If anything, she sees kindness. Compassion. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Because we’re friends,” Kaiser says. “We have history. That means something to me.”
“You’re going to catch him, right?”
He nods. “I did it once. I can do it again.” He hesitates. “There’s actually something I need to tell you about the victim. About the little boy.”
“What about him?”
“He was adop—”
His cell phone rings loudly and they both jump, making Georealize exactly how close they’d been standing to each other. He pulls it out, checks the display, and frowns. Holding up a finger, he steps into the living room, and she can hear him speaking in low tones. He’s back a moment later.
“I have to go,” he says to her, slipping his phone into his jeans pocket.
“You were going to tell me about the little boy.”
“Next time,” he says. “It was more of an FYI anyway, but there’s no time to get into it now. There’s a lead on Calvin.”
She freezes, a sour taste at the back of her throat. “What kind of lead?”
“Nothing that concerns you right now. It may not pan out.” Kaiser heads for the door. He grabs his hoodie from the closet, slips it on, then stops. “You sure there’s nothing you can tell me? Nothing at all?”
Geo thinks of the letters she received in prison, ten of them, only one of them read. The rest are in a box upstairs, under the bed. Where secrets hide.
“There’s nothing,” she says, touching his arm briefly. “But I understand why you keep asking me. I do. And if anything changes, I’ll let you know.”
She closes the door behind him, locks it, and lets out a long breath. There are things that came out at the trial, ugly things, horrific things. She told the court—and by extension, the public—what they needed to know.
The rest, she keeps to herself. And always will. She wasn’t perfect, but neither was Angela. In every story, there’s a hero and villain.
Sometimes one person can be both.
22
Geo watched in a haze as her best friend stared at her boyfriend. Angela’s lips were parted slightly, her tongue skimming lightly over her top lip. Her signature move, something she did when there was something—or someone—she liked. Geo used to think she wasn’t aware she was doing it, but of course she was. She saw that now. Calvin took in the sight of them, in their short dresses, the way they were leaning into each other even though they were technically standing still. He turned the TV off.
“You girls want something to drink?” he said, grabbing a T-shirt off the bed and pulling it over his head. If he noticed Angela watching him, he wasn’t acting like it. “I’ve got beer, orange juice, vodka, rum, Coke.…”
“Rum and Coke for me,” Angela said.
“Orange juice,” Geo said. She walked toward the bed, shrugging out of her coat, then sat down on the edge of the mattress, wondering where Angela would choose to sit. The apartment was tiny—five hundred square feet, if that. Other than Calvin’s bed, there was only a love seat and a small dining table with two wooden chairs.
But Angela didn’t sit. She fiddled with the stereo instead, leaning over it with her back to the room, the hem of her dress hiked up to reveal an eighth of an inch of ass cheeks.
As if Geo weren’t here. As if Angela were visiting her own boyfriend.
Calvin was back with the drinks, and Geo took a long gulp of hers, gagging a little as the strong liquid went down. There was vodka in it, which she hadn’t asked for, but she sensed she might need it. He handed Angela her drink and came back to sit beside Geo, kissing her, his lips lingering on hers for a few seconds. She felt herself relax.
“You taste sweet,” he said. “And drunk. I kind of like it, even though I don’t like you drinking without me.”
