Sunken Graves, Alan Lee [all ebook reader .txt] 📗

lips and closed it again. “Were you always like this, Daniel?”

“Starstruck?”

“Nervous around girls. You shouldn’t be. The boys and the other men stare and watch you like you’re the first real man they’ve ever seen,” she said.

“I’m fine with who I am, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“I don’t know, I’m still figuring it out.”

“Your confidence is shot,” she said.

“It’ll grow back.”

“The trauma you went through messed up more than your leg,” she said.

“Correct.”

“Of course it did, I should know that. That’s why you think you have to earn your place. Here’s a crass question—with your military family, is the war wound a badge of honor?”

“Yes. But it’s tricky.”

“Do you mind talking about this, Daniel?”

Ask me anything, Daisy.

Think risqué thoughts.

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Why is your family tricky?” she said.

“It was a good family. Still is, though my dad died. I didn’t fit in, a house full of real men, but I was the child of my mother.”

“When did your dad die?”

“Three years ago.”

“Were you close?” she said.

“A close as we could be. He and my brother wanted to watch Glory or Blackhawk Down but I liked comedies. I’d rather read than shoot skeet. Sports instead of hunting. They never said anything but I felt the disappointment. That’s why I like the Academy. No one is disappointed and I’m not disappointed with myself.”

She leaned back in her chair, nodding. “Disappointment with one’s self. That’s a new feeling for me. But a persistent one. Our histories are exactly opposite, Daniel.”

“How so?”

“You went through life feeling like you did it wrong. You felt you were disappointing people along the way. Well I did life exactly correct. I was popular, pretty, perfect in high school and college. I was told so every day. I didn’t drink until I was 21, for heaven’s sake. And now…disappointment.”

“What’s to be disappointed with?”

“Oh boy, don’t get me started.”

“I got time,” he said.

“You wouldn’t enjoy it. That’s a rant better saved for a second teacher date, not the first.”

“I want the rant, Daisy.”

“I think about this when I can’t sleep, Daniel, and here’s what I think. I think our parents took a first look at their darling pink newborns and it was unbearable knowing life would be difficult. So they spent money and time crafting a perfect world. An ideal childhood, where we could learn to always make the perfect choices. That way life wouldn’t be quite so hellish on their children. That’s where I went—I strolled that perfect path, humming and picking flowers, and I even accepted a marriage proposal from the correct man, because I should.”

“But you followed the yellow brick road…”

“And there’s no emerald city,” said Hathaway. “There really isn’t, Daniel. There’s only more road. My road was largely free of potholes but…but I’m questioning everything. Everything, the very premise of American fabric.”

“I had these thoughts too, when I couldn’t sleep, lying in a hospital bed.”

Her smile held no joy. “Your disillusionment is one year more mature than mine.”

“We’re a mess.”

“We are.” She leaned forward to squeeze his hand. “And you, poor guy, thought life would get better but you ran straight into the biggest, hairiest jerk imaginable.”

“Let’s not mention names.” Jennings’ hand tingled. He nodded backward at the patrons behind him. “His name is well known.”

“We’ll call him the hairy jerk. It suits him.” She winked.

“It’s so strange. He’s this monster who doesn’t even pretend that he’s not a monster, and everyone ignores that he hurts people.”

“Do you believe in fate, Daniel? Like you were brought to our school for a reason? To deal with him?”

“I don’t believe in fate. Or I don’t think I do.”

“What about God?”

“Yes. But if he brought me to the school for a reason, does that mean he’s responsible for blowing off my leg?”

“I hope not. I think he’s nicer than that.” Hathaway smiled and closed her eyes and shook her head, like triggering a reset. “Goodness, how did we get on this? We’ve only been here ten minutes.”

“You started it, talking about how hot and sad you are.”

She laughed, so pure that the college students behind them smiled at the sound.

Outside the coffee shop, beyond the warm glow, sitting in the dark cab of his restored 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1, a car that rarely came out of his garage, Peter Lynch watched Daisy Hathaway smile and laugh. She reached across the table to touch the arm of Daniel Jennings again, and Lynch screamed curses like he had Tourette’s—the sound audible outside his cab.

Lynch ground his teeth and his gums bled immediately. His bruxism was severe enough that his lower gums had begun to recede and he was on his third set of molar veneers. He squeezed the steering wheel and pressed against it, shoulders forced back into his seat. Powerful muscles bunching. The wheel would’ve bent in his newer cars.

Blinding rage thundered between his ears. A fish hook dangling from the keyring shivered.

In high school, and even into his late thirties, he would’ve stormed the coffee shop and beaten Jennings with an iron chair. Not one person would’ve or could’ve stopped him. He’d done it before, beaten someone, watching himself as if from a distance, sometimes with an audience. First the audience would pretend it wasn’t happening and then that it wasn’t their place to get involved. Eventually they’d hurry out, bravely calling 911 as they fled. A rapturous godlike emotion, breaking a human body and the onlookers too in awe to stop it.

People were cowards. But they had camera phones now.

Experience had taught him. Pain had taught him. Police would eventually show in force, even a day later at his house. Society would discover his rage and quit giving him business and money even though he beat the charges.

Society had a new bargaining chip now—they would take away his daughter. And that mattered. The first thing other than hate that had ever mattered.

For his daughter he could quell the volcano, delay the eruption.

Lynch forced his hands to release the wheel—fingers had gripped tight enough to leave skin behind—and a trickle of blood