“I’m fine,” she says assuming I’m just calling to check in.
“It wasn’t why I was calling. I don’t want you running around after Clare, specially this late.”
“You think I wanted to drive all over the city, I wasn’t going to leave her in the middle of nowhere,” she snaps.
“Trust me, people like her always find a way. She would’ve been fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
Gripping the phone tighter, I try to keep my shit together.
“I do know she’s trouble and I do know I don’t want you anywhere near her. She’s no good.”
“Coming from the guy who runs the local gang.” She snorts, adding, “I doubt I’ll hear from her for a while anyway. Seriously, stop worrying.”
“Are you fucking with me? All I do is worry about you,” I grind out.
Fuck this. Hanging up on her, I dig out my car keys and drive over to her house. It doesn’t take me long to jump the wall, cross her lawn, and climb the trellis.
Yet again her window isn’t locked, and I climb in easy enough.
“I should’ve guessed you hung up because you were coming over.”
Sat on her bed, she’s surrounded by her schoolwork. Moving a couple of her textbooks, I sit.
“If you came all the way over here just to tell me to stay away from Clare, you needn’t have bothered. We haven’t exactly been tight over the last few months.”
“I came over because we need to straighten some shit out. Will you at least look at me?”
She puts down her highlighter and textbook and stares at me with such attitude, it should piss me off, but it doesn’t.
“Start straightening, I have a lot of work to get through.”
“First, I need you to hear me real clear, just because we aren’t together doesn’t mean I don’t get to worry about you.”
She climbs off the bed. If she thinks she gets to walk off, she’s fucking mistaken. Jumping up, I’m behind her in four strides and spinning her to face me.
“Stop being so childish. If I don’t want you driving through the dregs of society, then you won’t. Do you even know the kinda shit that happens by the old tracks? You’re lucky you were in and out and nothing happened.”
“Fine, I’ll watch where I go. Is that it?”
Frowning, I ask, “Can you not even have a conversation with me without giving me shit?”
“Every time I look at you, I remember what we had, and you may have known it wasn’t real, but I thought it was. It hurts to see you and not be with you.”
“Amelia…”
“Don’t. You don’t have to coddle me, trust me, I don’t want to feel anything for you, but with everything I have going on at the moment, it’s overwhelming.”
I reach out and hold the side of her face. Just as soft as I remember every night as I fall asleep thinking about her.
“This… us, it’s for the best.”
“Yeah,” she huffs. “It just doesn’t feel like it now.”
I burn to kiss her, to wrap her in my arms, and never let her go. She has me re-evaluating everything. If I change my mind, there’d be no going back, and deep down, I know it wouldn’t work and we’ll have to go through this hell all over again. I need to get back to why I hauled my ass over here.
“Clare isn’t the girl you knew. She’s an addict, she can’t see it herself yet, but everyone around her can. Addicts use people and they always put themselves first. She isn’t your friend anymore and the sooner you figure that out, the better. She’ll drag you down and I can’t have that.”
