unForgivable (An inCapable World Novel Book 2) by Sara Hubbard Page B

because of the wire she wore, he won’t make bail.”
    What the hell?
    I sit up a little straighter and Damien’s head turns just enough to meet my eyes. Mother fucker. Liar! He knows them! He’s with them. I clutch the gun a little tighter, waiting to spring at any minute. Carrie had to know. How could she not? The wretched ache of betrayal consumes me and it takes all my self-control to not pull the trigger right here and now.
    Bitch! I’ll give you bitch!
    “George is trying to get him out, but it seems his voice on tape is pretty compelling evidence.” I hear a loud bang and it startles me, making me jump enough to knock the door. A small creak echoes through the space.
    “What was that?”
    Damian shrugs. “Radiator.”
    “Damien, I need you right now. I’m so depressed. I had to take an extra Valium last night to get some sleep, and you know how I function without sleep. I’m just a mess.”
    “I don’t want to hear any of this. It was only a matter of time before he ended up in jail. He’s a crook.”
    “Don’t say that about your father!”
    “Jesus, Mom, stepfather. And I made it clear when you married him I want nothing to do with him.”
    Damien Mendes. The name hits me like a punch to the gut. Oh my fuck. I was right. I did know him. Or…I knew of him, maybe met him a couple of times before he left for the military. We were in the same grade, though our high school was so big I don’t remember seeing much of him. Maybe in a few classes, but that’s it.
    Carrie brought me to Jimmy’s stepson’s house .
    Realization sinks in and memories flash through my mind. First of Jocelyn, and her voice and the different tone she used when speaking to me—or not speaking to me. I’ve only met her a few times and each time she’s looked down on me with snide comments and sideways glances.
    But Damien…he’s so different from how I remember him. Like night and day. He used to be tall and lanky with pimples and messy, chin length hair. The first time I met him was at Jocelyn’s wedding. I was sitting on some tires in their garage, fooling around with a boy I liked, Craig Shaeffer. He’d hounded me for weeks before then until I let him see my boobs. He wanted in my pants and I considered it, but when it came down to it that day in the garage, I said no. He didn’t like that and he kept trying to sneak his hands down into my pants, even though I gripped his arm and told him to stop.
    Damien walked in on us and I’m not sure what would have happened if he didn’t. He gawked at us, but not in a way that made me feel as if he was judging me. I think he was just surprised to find us there and perhaps to see my chest. He stood there, gawking, before walking backward and stumbling over some golf clubs. Craig yelled at him and called him a loser, told him to fuck off.
    I elbowed Craig and called him a dick. When Damien took off running, I followed. I don’t even know why. Maybe to explain? I don’t know. I never felt the need to explain myself to anyone, but somehow I did to him. I never did find him that night, though. Not at the dinner, or the dance after. He just vanished.
    I’m conflicted as I watch him talk with his mother, because it’s hard not to identify him with the awkward, shy boy he used to be that never seemed to fit in with anyone at school. The boy who ate in a corner while studying.
    A big part of me wants to run out there and get in his face and scream at him for lying to me, while the other part of me feels a touch of gratitude and compassion. He couldn’t know what he walked in on that night of his mother’s wedding. He couldn’t know that he might have saved me from something ugly.
    But I can’t forgive a lie. He needs to answer for that.
    It doesn’t matter that he’s trying to keep me hidden. The truth is that Jocelyn almost found us. She would have turned us in without a second thought. He put us at risk, and this thought tips me over the edge between anger and compassion. So