Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 90972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Preston: Are you coming tonight? It’s been a while.
Easton: We had to set up the keg without you. When are you showing up?
Carter: I got the joints all rolled and ready. It’s that good stuff that knocked you on your ass last time you smoked it. Hurry up, or it will all be gone.
And those are just the last three messages I’ve gotten. There are plenty more, and they remind me of the life I had before all this shit corrupted it. It’s like taking a step away from what reality has become, getting a look at the full picture. My best friends don’t have the first fucking idea what’s been happening lately. Like I have this whole secret from them.
I’ve had a lot of secrets from them. There are certain things a guy doesn’t tell anybody he wants to keep being friends with. The kind of stuff he knows he can’t come back from. Like accepting the gun Dad pressed into my hand and pulling the trigger because he said so. Because nobody denies him if they don’t want to pay the ultimate price.
Briggs’s house will have plenty to drink and plenty to smoke. I could use a night to disconnect. To forget. It might be the closest I can come to letting go, if only for now. The idea is what convinces me to steer the truck in a familiar direction. By the time I get there, there are cars pulling in, people carrying bags of booze and snacks, calling out to each other, waving, girls hugging like they didn’t just see each other at school earlier today.
I have to take a second after I park to get myself in the right headspace. I can’t walk in there with all of this at the front of my mind. They’ll be able to read it on me in no time.
Once I feel a little more in control of myself, I get out, head straight up to the house, and then seek out Carter. “I knew this would get you to show up,” he laughs, holding out two joints. I tuck one behind my ear and spark up the other, then grab a beer from the fridge. This is what I should be doing. Enjoying my night, living life. Not thinking back on committing murder for my own father or obsessing over a girl who’s too fucking stupid to know she’s been beat.
I keep waiting for the familiar, pleasant numbness to take over. Hit after hit, beer after beer while people have fun all around me. They’re laughing, they’re taking pictures, they’re hooking up. And all I can do is try desperately to disconnect. I can’t feel anything. I don’t want to.
“Where have you been lately? You’re all distracted.” Briggs drops into a chair next to mine in the dim, crowded living room, shoving me in a friendly way. “I barely recognize you; it’s been so long since I’ve seen your face.”
“The cafeteria table isn’t the same without you.” Wren follows him, holding a pair of red cups, before Briggs pulls her into his lap. One of the drinks is for him, and he takes it, draining it before setting it aside so he can use both hands to hold onto her.
I don’t know what to say. I guess there’s nothing to be said. The way they’re looking at each other, I don’t think either of them would hear me if I tried to explain. So I don’t bother, taking another long hit off the joint and wishing I had never come here tonight. I don’t need a reminder of what they have.
What I will never have.
Chapter 16
Tamson
Will he? Won’t he?
This is insane. I’ve been ready to jump out of my skin all day, looking for Kellen around every corner, glancing over my shoulder and expecting to see him towering over me. I’m supposed to drop out just because he thinks I should, and he still can’t give me a reason why.
He obviously doesn’t know me if he thinks I’m going to do what he says just because he says so. That’ll make me twice as likely to do the opposite. There’s a reason Jason would remind me to pick my battles carefully. I’ve never been good at taking orders. I’ve never been good at hiding my reaction, either.
Even so, even though I know I’m doing the right thing for me by being here at school, my nerves are shot. How much can a person go through before they completely shatter? Every little noise—somebody dropping a book out in the hall during class, somebody laughing too loud out on the quad—has me jumping today. My heart has spent more time in my throat than in my chest. Like I’m waiting for something awful to happen. I’m here, but I’m not here.