I’d never told my family all of the details of the night Bottles came into my life. It had been just a few weeks after Nicki had cut me out of his life without warning that I’d almost ended my own.
It was my birthday. Nicki and I had planned this celebration for months before we found out that his family was moving to Florida. I’d turned eighteen, and instead of celebrating by finally slaking our need for each other’s bodies, Nicki was in Tampa, and I’d just worked a long, soul-sucking shift at a downtown restaurant where I was a busboy.
Nicki had turned eighteen a few weeks earlier, but it had been almost two years since I’d spoken to him. I hadn’t heard a word from him since the night he had called me and ended our relationship without explanation.
When we were younger, sex had seemed like some huge, life-altering event. Nicki had wanted it, but I had wanted to wait, to at least fulfill our contract with our parents. I had told him I was afraid of doing something to hurt him, but I’d been lying to both of us.
I had really just been afraid that if we took that step, I’d lose him. If I gave him that last little bit of me, the universe would swoop in and tear him out of my hands. I was right to worry but holding back didn’t halt anything.
I regretted my decision once we found out that he and his family were leaving. I thought back to all the wasted opportunities we’d had where we could have lost ourselves in each other… I shook my head, trying to pull myself out of this funk.
I had been putting in alotof hours at work since Nicki had left. It was the only thing that kept me from poking at the aching void where my heart used to be. Instead of working through my feelings, I justworked. At the dojo, at the restaurant, at school, wherever. It didn’t matter, as longer as I didn’t have to think about the empty spot in my chest.
My shift had ended, and I’d just walked out the back door to the employee parking lot of the restaurant. My phone dinged, and I looked at it automatically.
My cell phone calendar app chimed happily, “Kaine’s Birthday!” I stared at the screen, my breath caught in my throat, and I stared at it numbly. My eyes felt hot and dry, heavy with tears that I could no longer shed. There was nothing more to wring from my heart.
The Terhunes had packed up everything and headed south one year, six weeks, twelve hours and thirty-two minutes prior to the end of my shift that night. Then Nicki had called me a few weeks later and asked me not to call him again. Even after he’d promised.Promised…
I looked at my cell phone. Nicki’s number was still at the top of my contacts list. I couldn’t bring myself to erase his number. Fuck, even if I had, it was carved into my heart. I hadn’t called him, not in all the time since he’d broken up with me. I’d been tempted so many times. I wanted to know, to understand. Demand an answer. Promise him anything if he would only tell me what I had done to drive him away. But I’d never called.
I thought about his laughter. His smile. The way his freckles made a little star on his cheek. I used kiss him on that cheek, telling him it was my heart’s targeting system. I was so fucking cheesy.God, I missed him. It would be so easy… Something inside me twisted and broke. Without thought about the time, I hit send.
“…Hello?” I heard a sleepy male voice on the other end. Shit… It was his dad.
“Mr. Terhune?” My voice squeaked.Goddamn it, I should have thought about the time. I should have thought about the fact that his Dad might not want me calling at all hours of the night…
“Devereaux?” he asked sharply. “Why are you calling, boy? It’s late.”
I swallowed hard, eyes flashing around the dirty alleyway, trying to think of something to say.
“I— I’m sorry for calling so late, Mr. Terhune. I was just… Ireallyneed to talk to Nicki. I was just hoping I could speak to him for just a minute?”
I could feel the hope pounding in my chest as adrenaline raced through my veins. If I could justtalkto Nicki, get him to listen to me, I knew I could get through to him. I’d make him realize that we were meant to be together. Let him know I could change whatever had made him back off from our relationship. Make him realize—
“I’m sorry, son,” Mr. Terhune said abruptly. “He’s— he’s out on a date.”
I stopped breathing. My vision narrowed to a tiny dot, everything else around me fading away into blackness.
A date.
He was on afuckingdate.
I was alone, heartbroken and miserable. And. He. Was. On. A.Date.
I don’t really remember what I said to Mr. Terhune, but I think it included an apology for calling, then I hung up.
I doubled over against the brick wall, trying desperately to drag air into my shattered chest. The winter wind blew across my skin, its icy shards sliding beneath my shirt to send a chilling numbness into the pit of my stomach. I’d never felt so much pain while also feeling so oddly numb.
Ofcourse,Nicki was with someone else. He was beautiful, smart, funny. His family’s decision to move to Florida had probably been a relief for him. At least there, he didn’t have to deal with me. He’d only gone out with me because he felt sorry for me. I’d run into Vinnie Avery a few weeks ago at school, and he had suggested much the same, but I hadn’t believed it. Or hadn’t wanted to, maybe. A part of me, deep down, though, absolutely believed it. Embraced it. Because it fit my reality better than the belief that someone as special as he was could love someone like me.
Sonny and Hicks had found me huddled under the bleachers at the end of the school day and we’d walked home that afternoon in unaccustomed silence. In the ensuing weeks, I’d distanced myself from my family, avoiding my parents and brothers. I didn’t really have any friends anymore, anyway. The only member of my family I could stand to be around was Weaver, but that was only because she didn’t push me. She didn’t try to fix me. She just let me know she was there.
I never knew what the twins had done to exact revenge, exactly, but I heard it had involved super glue, itching powder and a jock strap. Vinnie Avery had been walking funny for a week. I’d been distantly amused at the time, appreciating my siblings’ show of support, however misguided. Now, though, all I felt was bleak hopelessness.
I listed against the rough brick wall, struggling to drag air into my lungs. I turned away as some of my co-workers came out, walking away from the restaurant doors to their waiting rides, my body hidden by the darkness. I saw my own car sitting in the parking lot. It was a beat-up old Dodge that Nicki and I had worked on for months to get running. We’d finally figured out what was wrong with it, and we’d had just a few weeks of freedom one summer to enjoy it before he left.
Everything about the car was a reminder of Nicki and our time together. I thought about getting in and just… driving. Drive to Florida, to demand he explain why he had cut me out of his life. I considered just driving off into the darkness, letting the car drift off the highway and strike a bridge support, ending this freezing pain with fire and blood.
