His body shook.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know. I am so sorry. I have been sorry every day of my life.”
We did not go to his house.
Not yet.
He said there were things he needed to tell me before I met his wife, before I called our parents, before the past entered the home he had built under another name.
So the three of us sat in my rental car: Levi in the back seat, Jesse in the passenger seat, and me behind the wheel with both hands gripping nothing.
Jesse stared down at his palms.
“I can explain why I disappeared,” he said quietly. “I cannot excuse why I stayed gone.”
It was the most honest thing he could have said.
Then he told me.
On prom night, after walking his date to her friend’s car, Jesse crossed the parking lot to get his jacket from his Honda. The dance was nearly over. Most of the chaperones were inside. The far corner of the lot was poorly lit.
