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scream,” Bentley rasped. “All I heard was the branches snapping below, and then the sound of his breath bein’ forced from his lungs as he landed on the ledge. I ran over, hoping I was wrong. That he’d made it into the water somehow. But he wasn’t Roxy. He was lying there on that ledge, and there was blood comin’ from his head, and his leg was bent all unnatural like, and I just thought I was goin’ fuckin’ crazy. Because no way was that my baby brother, lyin’ there like that, and I couldn’t get to him.”
    “I couldn’t get to him,” he repeated, sounding even angrier. “I didn’t know how to get to him Rox. And I kept tellin’ myself that maybe if I hadn’t been so scared, too chicken shit myself, I could have saved him. If I just got to him in time.”
    “Bentley…” I shook my head, unable to stop the tears that were streamin’ down my face. “You can’t think like that. It wasn’t your fault…”
    “I didn’t tell my parents,” he said. “When the paramedics showed up, the boys told them he tried to jump and he fell. And I just never said differently, Rox. They never knew what really happened that day. I told myself it was because they wouldn’t want to know how bad it was. That I was protecting them from seeing it the way I did. But really, I was protecting myself. Because I knew they were gonna’ hate me for it.”
    “That ain’t fair, Bentley,” I rasped. “You were just a kid yourself. It was an accident.”
    “That’s what everyone kept sayin’.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t agree with that. It was my fault he was there that day. My fault for letting the boys goad him into jumping. It was all my damn fault.”
    “It wasn’t your fault,” I repeated, sounding stronger than I felt. I wanted to be strong for him right then, to show him somehow it wasn’t true. “And from the looks of it Bentley, you’ve been punishing yourself for a real long time. And I didn’t know Jake, but from everything I heard about him, he loved you Bentley. And I don’t think he’d want you to feel like that, now would he?”
    He stared up at me with glassy eyes, like he didn’t know what to say to that. But he didn’t need to say anything really, because we both knew it was true.
    “It’s why I started drinkin’,” he said. “The older I got, the more I thought about it. The more I saw his face like that in my dreams every night, reminding me what a piece of shit I was. And that first time I ever felt the sweet numbness of oblivion, it was the best feelin’ I’d ever had, Rox.”
    “How old were you?” I asked him gently.
    “Nineteen,” he said. “In case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t a real social butterfly in high school. I pretty much kept to myself after that. But after I graduated Basic, we went out and got drunk. And I liked it a lot. Too much, I guess. I kept it hidden for a long time. But then things just started spinnin’ out of control, and I didn’t know how to handle any of it. Seeing you, filled with so much light and beauty, I was afraid I was gonna’ pull you down with me.”
    I chuckled and leaned back, shaking my head. “And all the while, I was tryin’ to pull you up.”
    “I know you were,” he said softly. “But I’m a changed man now Roxy, and I just want you to give me the chance to show you that.”
    I stared at him for a long moment, not exactly knowin’ what to say. The truth was, Bentley had just laid himself bare to me. And though I still didn’t know what the hell was going to happen with us, I did know that I wanted him to be a part of my life. I wanted him to be able to tell me these things when he had no one else to turn to. And maybe, if I was bein’ honest, I wanted more too.
    But all of that would have to wait.

 
    Chapter Nine
    Roxy
    Sheriff Beaudry came by Bits N’ Bobs the next day to tell me that Corey had been bailed out while he waited for sentencing on his charges. He said that they’d found some kind of pill