Straightened-17
2000 Words
The sun was already starting to rise over the sleepy apartment complexes. Drisklay had taken Noah away at least a quarter of an hour ago, and neither Kennedy nor Nick had budged.
“I can’t believe it.” Nick hung his head over his lap until his dreadlocks were just a few inches off the ground.
“Why didn’t he tell Drisklay the truth?”
Nick only repeated, “I can’t believe it.”
So that was it. Next would come the news. The media heyday. The swarms of locusts so ready to glut themselves on the Abernathy scandal. Trash journalists wanting to make a name for themselves. Websites typing out their clickbait headlines in the pre-dawn hours. It was probably all over Channel 2 already.
Gay teen accused of murdering his homophobic father.
She thought about emailing Ian, the journalist she’d met last year during her own series of media spotlights. But what would be the point? The one time she’d tried to go on air to tell the public her side of a controversial story, her best friend’s medical history had been exposed and dissected in the course of a three-minute live segment. No, the most she could hope for was to keep herself out of the limelight and hope the winds blew something even more scandalous across the Boston harbors, something that would make everyone forget Noah and the Abernathy ordeal before the weekend.
“Why don’t you think Noah told the detective about that club?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t he say anything?”
Nick frowned. “It could be he’s too embarrassed to admit he was at a gay bar, no matter what the reason.”
“But still, if it was that or get accused of killing your dad ...”
A shrug. “Maybe he was scared of getting in trouble for that fight.”
“Same thing,” Kennedy replied. “If the only other option is to go to jail for murder ...”
Nick sighed. “I suppose the other possibility is Noah wasn’t telling us the truth. He may not have been at the Lucky Star at all.”
“But why would he make that up? Why would he tell a story like that unless he ...” Kennedy stopped herself.
Nick held her gaze. “You know it’s possible that Noah’s guilty, don’t you?”
No. She couldn’t believe it. And how could Nick? Wasn’t he supposed to be Noah’s advocate? Wasn’t he supposed to stand by him during hard times? Isn’t that what being a youth pastor was all about?
“Trust me, I don’t like that idea any more than you do, but we still have to consider ...” His voice trailed off.
He could consider all he wanted. Kennedy wouldn’t. She knew Noah was innocent. He couldn’t even stomach beating someone up in a clear-cut case of self-defense. There was no way he would have killed his dad. It was impossible.
Unthinkable.
Nick checked the time on his phone. “Wow, it’s already six. Maybe we should head downstairs.”
Six in the morning? It felt like ten at night.
“Come on. You must be exhausted. Let’s find you something to eat, and then we can crash for a few hours.” Nick placed his hand on the small of Kennedy’s back as they headed to the elevator. She did her best to ignore his touch. She didn’t want his sympathy right now. She didn’t want his food or his hospitality, either.
The only thing she wanted was the chance to prove Noah’s innocence.
CHAPTER 23The Lindgrens were still sleeping when Nick and Kennedy entered his apartment. She headed straight for the couch. What a night.
Or morning.
Whatever.
She stretched out, feeling the exhaustion seep out of the pores of her legs. She shut her eyes, realizing for the first time what a tension headache she had developed.
Noah was innocent. She knew that as clearly as she knew the periodic table. He couldn’t have killed his dad. He was out all night. She’d heard him say so herself. Sure, it’d be embarrassing to admit he’d been at a gay bar, and not everyone would swallow his side of the story. But wasn’t that still better than having people think he’d murdered his own dad?
She kept replaying Detective Drisklay’s recitation from earlier that day. Or night. Whichever it was. He made it out as if Noah were a petulant toddler, ready to lash out at his dad for not agreeing with him. Parents and children disagreed all the time. Kennedy couldn’t begin to guess how many fights she and her dad had gotten in while she still was in high school. Fights over how short her skirts could be, fights about how much makeup was too much, fights about the so-called losers he didn’t want hanging around his home or his daughter. That still didn’t mean she would ever dream of murder.
Noah was a well brought-up, put-together boy. He had pleasant manners, a kind disposition. His biggest fault was probably that he was so broody, but that could be explained by the frustration of being attracted to guys in a home as staunch and strict as the Abernathys’.
And where had that attraction come from, exactly? She’d been led to believe that people who were gay chose that lifestyle. What did that mean for people like Noah, people who hated being attracted to the same gender, people who’d been told their whole lives those attractions were wicked and evil? Should Noah feel guilty for liking other guys, or was it nothing more than a temptation, the same kind of temptation Kennedy faced when her roommate ogled the pictures in her calendar full of shirtless firemen with their hard jawlines and chiseled abs?
If there was one thing she remembered from sitting in Sandy’s Sunday school class as a little girl, it was that temptations themselves weren’t a sin. How did that translate in the case of someone like Noah? And how could Christians hope to settle down enough to agree on anything in the homosexuality debate until they discovered unequivocally the core reasons people ended up having same-s*x attractions in the first place? Was it genetic? Hormonal? The byproduct of upbringing? Sign of abuse?
She thought about Nick’s sister Lessa. He’d never finished the story. Kennedy tried to guess what happened to her. If her mom hadn’t thrown herself into that “housewife theology,” as Nick called it, would Lessa have run away from home? Would she have grown to be completely comfortable as a heterosexual, completely comfortable with herself as a woman?
And what did it mean to be perfectly comfortable as a woman, anyway? Kennedy’s dad talked to her all the time about modesty, warned her not to cause anyone to stumble by dressing too provocatively. Sometimes when she was walking around campus, she’d catch another student staring at her and feel immediately guilty. If she didn’t spend so much time on her hair, if she didn’t worry so much about her clothes, would people stop looking at her like that?
Was it her fault if she wanted to look good? Was that something she was supposed to be ashamed of? It’s not like she could crawl out of her own body, not like she could stop being a woman. If people turned their heads or entertained impure thoughts, wasn’t that their problem, not hers? She couldn’t stop being a female, so why should she feel ashamed of that?
Kennedy was a virgin, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. It didn’t mean she didn’t struggle with desires. There were times when she wished she could free herself from all that s****l baggage. Stop thinking about s*x, stop worrying about s*x, and just go on with her life without the constant fear of getting date raped or harassed. Without worrying about whether or not she was dressed too immodestly or if she was causing anyone to stumble. Without worrying about who she’d marry and what it would feel like to be with him on their wedding night. If she could turn herself into an asexual being, there was the very real chance that she and Reuben could be lab partners again their sophomore year instead of him hiding down in Kenya to protect her from falling in love with someone who would one day die of AIDS.
Her whole body was heavy. Why did her mind keep racing? Why couldn’t she slow her thoughts down? They crashed and tumbled together: images of Drisklay cuffing Noah and dragging him to the exit, of Vivian claiming responsibility for her husband’s murder, of Jodie crying softly into Nick’s chest at her grandma’s home. Had all that really happened in a single night?
She needed to take a deep breath. Slow down those chaotic thoughts. Ignore those flashing mental images.
She couldn’t do anything to help Noah right now. All she could do was pray.
Pray ...
Dear Father, Kennedy began, but she fell asleep before she could say another word.
CHAPTER 24“It’s burnt.”
Kennedy woke up to the grating sound of a high-pitched whine.
Pots crashed and clanged against one another in Nick’s kitchen. “Woong, I told you, Miss Kennedy and Mr. Nick are trying to get some sleep. They had a long night ...”
“Yucky!”
Kennedy opened her eyes in time to see a dark brown pancake flying through the dining room and landing beside Nick’s trash can. She heard Sandy muttering under her breath but couldn’t make out what she said.
She sat up on Nick’s couch and stifled a groan. Every muscle in her body was stiff. She could only guess what time it was. Had she slept another day away? Sandy was cooking breakfast, so it couldn’t be too late, could it?
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Sandy called from the kitchen. “Sorry about the noise. We were trying to be quiet.”
“Yucky!” Woong screeched.
Sandy’s hair was falling out of her French braid in small, frizzy strands that made the gray stand out so much more than the brown. “I already told you. Mr. Nick didn’t have the same ingredients we use at home. They’re different pancakes. Different.” She spoke the last word slowly and deliberately.
“It’s burnt.” Woong pouted.
Sandy sighed and pointed to the stove with a spatula. “Would you like a pancake or two, hon?”
Kennedy wasn’t sure why she didn’t feel hungrier. Something from the kitchen didn’t smell quite right.
“I’m sorry.” Sandy leaned over the stove to flip her pancakes over. “All I could find was flour and salt. It’s, well, it’s not how I’m used to ...”
“Yucky!” Woong screamed.
Sandy sighed and took a small bite from the pancake. “I know, son. Maybe when Dad wakes up we’ll go out to Rusty’s, or ...”
“I’m already awake.” Carl sat up with a loud succession of groans. “I’m awake,” he repeated, as if he needed to convince himself. He turned to Kennedy. “How’d last night go? Did you and Nick get much sleep?”
Kennedy tried to remember the chronology of last night’s events, starting at the time the Lindgrens went to bed.
“Carl, darling, she just woke up.” Sandy stepped into the living room to give her husband a kiss on his cheek. “And Woong’s starving. We better find someplace we can eat, and then Kennedy can tell us about her night. It was two by the time we got here. I’m sure not much more could have happened between now and then.”
“You’d be surprised.” Kennedy glanced down the hall, where a few straggling dreadlocks were all that could be seen sticking out from a camouflage sleeping bag.
Sandy was rubbing Carl’s back. “Well, let’s let Nick get some more sleep. We can find some place around here that serves breakfast, and you can tell us all about it.”
Kennedy sipped her hot cocoa at Rusty’s Diner and hoped she’d gotten all her facts straight. She’d started the story as soon as the waitress took their order, and their food arrived when she got to the part about Drisklay arresting Noah.
“So Vivian’s not the suspect?” Sandy asked and tucked a napkin on Woong’s lap.
“No. She never was, really. I think she was afraid they’d go after Noah, so she turned herself in.”
Sandy stripped the paper off a straw and slipped it into Woong’s orange juice. “So what made them decide it was really Noah?”
“I don’t know.” Kennedy strained, trying to read Carl’s and Sandy’s faces. Did they think he was guilty?
Carl dipped his biscuit into the gravy. “Drisklay doesn’t have to tell everything he found in his investigation.”
“I know that,” Sandy said. “I just thought maybe he gave some sort of clue ...”
“I really don’t know what made him come after Noah.” Kennedy’s mind was still spinning. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Hate can make people do some unthinkable things,” Sandy mused.
Carl frowned. “Nobody’s saying Noah really did it.”
“I know that. I’m just thinking ...” Sandy shook her head. “Poor Vivian. First her husband gone. Now her son ...” She clucked her tongue.
“Now, what about that guy who was stabbed? What did you say his name was?”
When he wasn’t looking, Woong tore off a big chunk of Carl’s biscuit and shoved it in his mouth.
“Marcos Esperanza,” Kennedy answered.
- Writer
