Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
When I checked my phone, Lark had gone silent. My friends English and Whitley, who were also at the beach with Lark, had picked up the thread and sent obscene pictures from a beach party. What I should do was call Lark and vent to her.
Instead, my finger hovered on Penn’s number. It wouldn’t be strange for me to call him. He’d been in my life since I was little. He’d always been the person to pick me up, even more so than Lark. And yet, this felt like a betrayal, even to the man who had just abandoned me.
Ignoring my phone, I opened my email instead, resisting the temptation. I just needed a Xanax and to go to sleep.
As I absently scrolled through my email, a new email popped up from the contact at the charity. We’d met this afternoon, which was the real reason I’d been late to meet Camden, and she’d said that I’d hear from her if something came up. I opened the email and scrolled through the information for the children’s charity along with a date to meet the kids after I got back.
A part of me wanted to be so pissed at Camden and cancel it. I didn’t need to do more work, and I’d only decided to do it to prove myself. But what did I have to prove when he was off doing who knew what with who knew who?
Lies. I knew exactly where he went when he needed to “blow off steam.” He’d gone to Fiona’s. I knew it for certain. As much as I knew that he’d be furious if I called Penn. My own Achilles heel.
But maybe I’d still go through with the charity, not to prove it to Camden or to make myself look good, but maybe just… for myself.
8
Camden
My head was fuzzy as I crashed back into my limo and told my driver to drive. I knew it was the alcohol and the cigar, but it was more than that. My lungs felt tight. It was hard to breathe, and I wasn’t getting in enough oxygen. As I sucked in another breath, I placed my hand on my chest and wheezed. My lungs rattled.
Fuck. I knew what that meant. Fucking fuck.
I leaned forward, swiping open the compartment in the limo where I kept emergency supplies. “Where are you? Goddamn it.”
I scooted past bottles of booze, a box of condoms, and a collection of chocolates that must have belonged to Katherine.
Then I saw it. “There you are.” I grabbed the inhaler.
I shook it a few times, brought it to my lips, and pressed down on the top, inhaling deeply. I leaned back against the leather seat and waited for my breathing to even out, for the tightness to leave my lungs. It took a few minutes before everything began to return to normal.
That could have been bad. As Katherine and I argued upstairs, I’d felt it coming on, but I’d ignored it, willed it away. Not that it had ever fucking worked.
Alcohol, cigar smoke, and construction dust were not a winning set. Not even close. Fuck, it was amazing how one little life-saving bit of medicine could make me feel like such a fucking failure. Millions of people used inhalers to control their asthma, but somehow, it made me a freak to have to use medicine because my lungs couldn’t properly function.
There were very few people who knew that I needed to use it. Besides my father and Candice, if she even remembered, I could only think of my closest friend, Court Kensington. He’d never bring it up, but we didn’t hide from each other. We knew all the dark and nasty sides that we kept from everyone else. I actually wished that he were here tonight instead of in Puerto Rico already with his girlfriend, English.
But he wasn’t, and I’d just snapped at Katherine. There was no one else in my life to be with. I just needed to get away.
I knew exactly where I should go.
* * *
It was an hour later when I showed up outside of Hank’s, a run-down billiards hall on the wrong side of town. One night about two years ago, I’d stumbled across the place with the police chief, José. I’d needed an escape, and despite the fact that most people thought I had him in my pocket, we actually enjoyed each other’s company.
He’d suggested Hank’s. After he’d seen how I played, he’d regretted bringing me. Pool was my sport of choice. Unsurprisingly, as a kid who had suffered with asthma, I hadn’t been too fond of most outdoor sports, but pool was a game of math, strategy, and skill. A game I had gotten really good at while secluded in my father’s home, growing up.
I’d shown up to the pool hall dressed as a nobody, and life had faded away. I was still Camden Percy. I couldn’t escape who I was, not even in this shithole, but no one treated me differently for it. After a few months, I’d purchased a condo down the street for nights when I got too fucked up or I just wasn’t ready to go back. It was a refuge from a world that never knew I needed one.