Trudging my way back tomy beat up, piece-of-shit car, I felt the exhaustion seep into my bones. It had been nearly four months since my parents died and just over two since my brother and I moved into our apartment. And there wasn’t a single day that passed where I didn’t worry about something: Ben’s grades at school, his ability to balance his new part-time job at the local grocery store, keeping food in the fridge,how I was going to keep paying for my car insurance.
It all boiled down to money.
Now I understood why my parents fought so much.
And it made my heart clench thinking the last words between me and my mom.
“I can’t stay here forever,” I yelled at her, grabbing my car keys. “This place is a shithole, and I need to get out. I need a life of my own.”
“And the one your father and I gave you isn’tenough?” Her eyes shimmered with tears, but she was so angry I doubted she’d let them fall. When I didn’t answer fast enough, she continued, “We’re not. We never have been. We’re not good enough for you.”
“Maybe not,” I spat, walking out the door to head to Gavin’s party. Even though he didn’t understand me either, at least I could get lost in the possibility of my future there without havingto wallow in my piss-poor existence here.
I didn’t actually mean them, the words I threw at her. My intention had been to hurt her, and I had. But as soon as they were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back, swallow them whole, apologize for being an asshole.
But since I wasn’t much more than that—a stubborn asshole—I let them sit there, let the stench rot between us as I walked out thedoor.
If I would have known that was going to be the last time I saw her, I never…
“Pointless,” I muttered to myself, slamming my open palms against the steering wheel. Some woman was loading her kids into the car next to mine, shielding them from what clearly appeared to be a murderous rampage going on in my car.
Reacting to the shock written across her face, I held my hands up, palms out,mouthing the words, “I’m sorry,” as if I actually gave a fuck what she thought.
As I drove home from the crappy, low-budget family restaurant where I waited tables, I thought about how much my life had changed in such a short period of time. It was as if I didn’t even know who I was anymore. That thought made me laugh, because if I were honest with myself, I’d never really known who I was.
From hiding my sexuality simply because it was easier than dealing with reality, to choosing a college major simply because it would make more money than my father did, I was already leading a boring life to begin with.
And now, working two lame jobs waiting tables, neither of which on their own even came close to paying the bills—fuck, even both of them combined didn’t even seem to scratch thesurface—staying up all night worrying about my brother, and everything else that seemed horribly out of my control, well, it wasn’t like I was enjoying this version of life much either.
As I turned down the road to my apartment, I noticed a car parked out front.
Gavin.
Shit. I hadn’t seen him in weeks. Maybe close to a month.
The car lurched forward as I shifted into Park. I didn’t have theenergy to deal with much tonight, and that definitely meant not having the energy to deal with Gavin and his shit. Keeping my demeanor cool and detached, and my eyes away from his, I walked up to him. “What?” I asked, trying not to pay attention to the way I knew my body would react to his. But when I glanced up at his face, his deep brown eyes staring at me in concern, his hair a tousled mess,I registered an all too foreign feeling when it came to Gavin.
Indifference.
“I… uh…,” he stuttered, running his hand through his messy hair. “It’s just that—”
The anger I felt at how he challenged my decision to leave school when it was the most difficult decision I’d ever had to make returned the second his words hit my ears. “It’s just nothing.” I cut him off. “Some best friend you’ve been.”As I walked past him, I made sure to bump my shoulder into his, probably harder than it needed to be, but I needed to drive my point home.
Not like I had a fucking clue what my point was. From thinking about the fight with my mom to worrying about everything under the sun, to adding up the late bills in my head, the last thing I needed to think about was Gavin’s feelings.
He sure as hell hadn’tthought about mine. But that didn’t stop him from following me into the apartment.
Needless to say, the flame of my infatuation with him was extinguished. It was damn near impossible to have feelings for someone who I thought was my best friend when thatfriendbarely showed his face when I needed him the most.
“I’ve been a shitty friend,” he admitted, closing the door behind him.
Laughtermixed with rage, forcing an odd sound to fall from my lips. “That’s an understatement.” I walked to the fridge, opening it while keeping my eyes from him. It was just as it had been for the last few days, empty. Slamming the door, the lone bottle of ketchup rattled on the shelf. Beat down by pretty much everything surrounding me, I slumped into the chair and buried my face in my hands. “You haven’teven called to check on me,” I muttered, sounded like some kind of wounded animal.
The chair scraped along the cheap linoleum floor as he pulled it out. Huffing, he sat down, shaking the table and its uneven legs. “I know. I suck,” he admitted.
After lifting my head out of my hands, I looked him straight in the eyes. “Yeah, you do.” Something between us shifted, reverting us back to the oldfriends we always used to be. No asshole douchiness on his part. No scared cowardice on mine. We both chuckled, the sound punctuating the odd calm surrounding us. “I’d, uh, offer you something to drink,” I said, tipping my head toward the empty fridge. “But I’m pretty much out of everything, unless you want a solid chug of ketchup?”
Surprise and what looked like remorse twisted his face intoan uneasy knot. The corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes softened. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
