Jack turned his back to me, then dropped his shoulders.
“What?” I asked. He seemed mad. Mad at me. I couldn’t take it if he were. I couldn’t handle it. I’d break for sure.
“It should be that easy,” he said softly. “I’m trying to understand, but I just …” Jack whipped around, a mix of fire and sadness glaring in his eyes. “I can’t.”
I huffed and tucked my arms tightly across my chest. “What don’t you get?” The words tasted as bitter as they sounded. I wasn’t mad at him but couldn’tnotfuck everything up. Jack had become the wall I leaned against. The bright spot that made the world a little less gray.Please, don’t take you away from me.
“You.” He exhaled and deflated with it. “It’s okay to stand up for yourself, even if it means someone might not like it. Your parents, Sasha … They don’t get to shit on you, and you don’t have to take it with that blinding smile you show the world.”
“I’m not smilin’—”
“You sure as shit aren’t yelling and screaming. What youshouldbe doing.” Jack paced away and back, rage in every jerky move of his body. “Stop letting them run over you. Take it to them. Hell, go to your dad’s job. Make him face you. Go to Sasha’s house, take a witness, take me, get in her face, and tell her it’s over in front of her parents. Make it so she can’t weasel back in.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. I can’t—”
“You. Can. But you fucking won’t.” Jack stormed to his shoes and stomped into them, grumbling to himself. “Can’t fucking trust … Always let you down … You know better …” I didn’t catch all of it but enough.
“Where’re you goin’?” I asked.Askedwhen I wanted to yell at him. When I wanted to wrap my arms around him and make him stay. When I wanted to throw him against the wall until he fought me off. I fucking asked. Politely even.
“Home.” Jack stood and marched away, throwing over his shoulder, “Let me know when your balls drop.” He flung the door open, then stopped, one hand gripping the frame and the other the knob.
With his head slightly turned, he added, “Their lives aren’t more important than you living your own.”
The quiver in his chin wrecked me.
I fell to my knees as he disappeared from view. When the front door slammed with such finality, such hopelessness, I jumped to my feet and punched the nearest wall as a roar ripped from my lungs.
“Fuck!”
Thecoolmetalheatedquickly when I pressed my head against it. Voices and laughter surrounded me but bled together in a single hum of noise, isolating me as much as suffocating me. Too many people. This year could not be over fast enough. I wanted out. I wanted away from everything hanging around me, weighing on me, dragging me to my knees.
The weekend had been long as fuck. And miserable. I wanted to see Jack, to apologize. This heavy ache in my gut sucked. He had to know he was still worth fighting for, and I wanted to believe I was too, but that was a little harder to put faith in.
“Someone looks like they missed their chance at getting sucked off by their boyfriend over the long weekend.”
I snickered, then turned my head, leaving it against my locker, and peeked at Jack beside me. How did he do that? How did he effortlessly pull me out of the pits when I was the one who put me there? When I should be reaching for him, not the other way around?
One corner of his lips twitched, as close to a smile as he’d make here at school. “What?”
“Nothin’.”
“Bullshit.”
“I swear.”
“Don’t make me kick your ass, Winters.”
I stared pointedly at his lips and licked my own.
Jack snorted. “By the look on your face, you’d like that too much.” He leaned closer and hissed, “Is that what you need right now? Need someone to rough up that sexy ass of yours?”
“Not someone.”
“Exactly. Your ass is mine and only mine.”
“Still? You didn’t give up on me?”
Jack sighed. “Thought you were smarter than that.” Keeping his voice low, he said, “I was pissed, okay?”
