Free The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) by John Montesano Page A

emotional passion for her students.
                  “I’ll find him.  I promise.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    TWENTY ONE
     
    Like any normal- and I use that term loosely- married couple, Lindsey and I had our fair share of problems and fights from time to time.  Who didn’t?  And we fought over your typical marital issues: money, house cleaning, bills, money, social events, and money.  But within the last six months we fought over one issue:  Jake.  I could do nothing but blame myself and loathe in my own self- pity, feeling sorry, not only for myself, but for Jake, too.  Lindsey tried as much as she could to be sympathetic and convincing herself that it was just as I pleaded, an accident.  She, too, had her own grieving to do, regardless of the incident, Jake was still dead.
                  The incident.  That’s all we use to discuss Jake’s death.  We hardly mention his name or how he died.  I certainly knew how he died and Lindsey certainly wanted to me to tell her and fill in the blanks.  It was an ugly battle for months and I just outright refused.  I wanted to let it die with me.  Let it fester inside of me.  Eat away at my insides and let me wither away to nothing. 
    She knew about the LSD and the attempted robbery.  She also knew the fact that Jake was shot- twice.  There are some other minor details about how and why Jake was shot but that was it.  There was no more I could tell her.  No reason to have her relive the same nightmares as I do. 
    I always had a feeling that Lindsey, deep down, blamed me for what happened to him but she never said it outright.  As soon as I told Dr. Sharper about how I felt sorry for myself and for Jake, she immediately asked why I hadn’t felt sorry for Lindsey.  I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know.  Or did I know the answer but didn’t want anyone to know how I felt about her anymore?  I mean, shit, she wasn’t the one that handed him the gun.  She didn’t show him how to load the gun.  She didn’t lace his bloodstream with LSD, send him out into the ghetto, and point him down a path of crime.  So why didn’t I feel a certain way about my wife?
                  Lindsey and I never knew why the incident was always where our arguments always ended up but we had a pretty good idea.  Sorrow.  Grief.  Blame.  Even back in high school, when Lindsey and I started dating, she always suppressed, rather than let loose, her feelings.  In those days, our biggest fights were over her being jealous when Amanda Blanch, the cheerleading captain, would hang around my locker.  Or the fact that I chose to hang out with my buddies rather than watch a chick flick.  Or how I didn’t return her phone call or spend two hours on the phone with her so she could blab on about teenage gossip.  Now that I think about it, the trend of being blamed started way back then. 
                  Here we are now, fifteen years later, and Jake is now the root of blame in the Barnes household.  I have always felt, despite how much I loved Lindsey, she always held me responsible for the many burdens in her life.  And I consistently find that I am convincing myself that the burdens are nobody’s fault- certainly not mine.
                  I was, and still am, one of those people who wanted to get the feelings out in the open and move beyond the situation that caused a hiccup in our relationship.  I don’t have patience for unnecessary bullshit.  With Lindsey it was different.  She’d rather give me the silent treatment for hours on end and stew in her own emotions, leaving me to feel as if everything is just hunky dory. 
    “What’s up?” she asked.  She was sitting across from me at the kitchen table.  Lindsey had a look of concern on her face but it didn’t look like it was for my benefit.
                  I finally looked at her then said, “It’s just, you know, this