“It was a couple of years after my mom left me at Grandma Maya’s and took off for the last time. I was the new kid, and all the rich assholes at the high school thought I was worthless. I was mad about a lot of things that I hadn’t figured out yet, mad because everyone kept shitting on me and abandoning me, you know?”
There’s an edge to his voice, an urgency I don’t normally hear, and I rub my thumb across the back of his hand while I listen. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
“Ages ago,” he grumbles and finally turns his eyes up to mine. “The first fight, that was a long time coming. This golden boy prick named Jason was picking on a kid on our algebra class, and I just lost it one day. Caught him in the hallway shoving the other kid and I started yelling. As soon as it came to blows, everyone just assumed I was the problem.”
He grits his teeth together. I know that he’ll claim it’s no big deal, but I can also see this bothers him.
“With Mr. Robertson, though,” he continues, “it came out of nowhere. He taught English, and I actually looked up to the guy. He didn’t talk down to his students, and he had us read good books. But then one day my friend, this junior girl named Marissa, told me he’d tried to grab her breast when she stayed late one day. Something about it broke my brain, and when I saw him in the parking lot, I tackled him.”
I let out a low whistle. Hearing his story makes something deep inside of me go all twisty. My heart aches for him, but at the same time, I’m seeing something intense inside of Stone that I didn’t know was there.
You have to be pretty damn wild to tackle a teacher in the parking lot.
“Damn, Stone,” is all I can manage.
He rubs the back of his head, and lightning flashes outside. “Yeah. The story came out, and Mr. Robertson got the boot, but that didn’t mean fuck all for me. I was already shipped away and forgotten. It’s shit, but that’s how the world works.”
I shake my head and realize there are tears in the corners of my eyes. “That’s not how it should work,” I say, working hard to steady my voice. “That’s not how the world is supposed to work, Stone. It’s not supposed to be up to confused, lonely teenagers to fight off the bad guys.”
“Lot of good it did anyone.”
“No,” I say. “That’s not right. If I would have had someone there standing up for me when I was bullied, it would have made a world of difference. And you might have gone about it all the wrong way, but if you got that teacher out of the classroom, you saved more people from trauma than you’ll ever realize.”
He looks at me with soft eyes. “Thanks for saying that.”
“It’s true,” I insist, needing him to know it.
“Yeah,” he says. “And it’s also true that I’m still a fuckup. I dropped out of the alternative school the next semester, and I only managed to stop getting in fights with strangers and trouble with the cops about five years ago.” He leans back on the bed, releasing my hand. “Maybe it’s the beer, but I just thought I should tell you all of that, since I haven’t.”
A tremble weakens me, and a warm pain hums behind my ribs. He’s being vulnerable, and it practically tears me open.
“You’re not a fuckup,” I say. Then my breath catches as a memory jumps back. “When you dropped out of the school, that must have been the same time…”
“Yeah, when Grandma Maya died,” he says.
This time, I don’t hold back. I crawl forward and press my body to Stone’s. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and bury my face against his chest. His inky dirt scent fills my nose, and I feel his breath hitching behind his ribs.
I hate that this has been his life. No wonder he’s had such a hard time finding his path. The fact that he’s found it at all seems like proof that he’s every bit as incredible as I’m starting to believe he is. His heart must be so strong to live through all of that and still sit here, gentle and open with me.
But as I stroke my fingers down his spine and hold him, fear trickles in, too. My life hasn’t been easy, but it’s nothing like his, and fist fights and trouble with the police make my anxieties kick into overdrive.
I’ve happily lived in my geek bubble for years. Everything I need is right there with my friends.
Everything except for Stone, that is, and I tingle with fear and hope and elation when I realize I might need him, too.
“Aw, Matty,” Stone says as he strokes the back of my head. “I’m okay, I really am.”
“Yeah,” I say, still holding him tight. “I know you are.”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
STONE
I might not have dumpedmy feelings on Matty last night if I knew I’d be staring at a fallen tree in the wooded driveway the next morning.
As soon as I woke, I snuck out to pick up fallen branches after the storm. Baring my soul left me uncomfortable, and the sooner I get back to Chicago, the sooner I can pretend none of that ever happened.
It’s not just my own past that I want to run from. I feel awkward and out of place around Matty’s friends now, and worse than that, something has shifted between us. Matty was sweet, just like always, but I can tell he’s looking at me differently now.
