Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
The only face I focus on while saying that is my brother’s and it tightens up. I see a flicker of disappointment and for some reason, it makes me hesitate. It makes me think that if things were different, if we were like Ledger and Stellan and Shep, if we were closer, I’d…
But what the fuck?
Since when do I hesitate when I disappoint people? Since when does that make me feel disappointed myself?
All the more reason to get the fuck out of here and have Homer stay away from me.
So I make my way across the bar, dodging the crowd, trying not to bump into people.
But unfortunately I do.
Crash into someone.
The last someone that I wanted to tonight.
The last guy of our group.
This is the first time I’m seeing him since his dad’s funeral. That I admit I went to very, very reluctantly. Which is saying something, because when I came back to Bardstown, my only goal was to be there for my best friend. Even though he didn’t want me to be. Even though he hated my fucking guts and has hated me for two long years.
But now I realize that it may have been longer.
It may have been since the first time we met.
I jerk my chin at him. “Hey.”
He doesn’t return my greeting though, his eyes growing harsh.
I glance down at the drink he’s holding in his hand. “Beer. Kinda light for you, isn’t it?”
“I’m building up to it. The hard stuff.”
“Didn’t think you needed any building up to. After two years of speed drinking, you must be more vodka than water right about now.”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” he sneers almost. “Since you’ve been my babysitter for two years.”
Actually I’m realizing that I’ve been his baby-fucking-sitter for much longer now.
See, I’ve had time to think about it.
All the years of friendship. All the years of brotherhood.
Turns out, it was only one-sided and I was too stupid to see it.
I’ve been too fucking blind.
The thing that I thought was friendship was more of a co-dependency. Of him on me and vice versa.
He needed someone to save him from his shitty, pathetic life. And I needed someone to… need me. To want me for who I was because of my shitty, pathetic life.
Wasn’t it?
I saved him from those bullies, and he saved me from feeling like a perpetual disappointment.
And then I kept saving him.
I saved him every time I didn’t share about my abuse because I didn’t want to take away from his. I’m not much of a sharing type anyway, and he made it even easier by keeping it all about him and his pathetic life.
I even saved him from feeling rejected when I gave up the soccer captainship. Oh, and never told him about the coach offering it to me first. Because I always thought that whatever I learned about soccer, I learned it from him and I didn’t even like the game anyway.
So it was his.
I even gave him the girl, and it burns me — fucking burns me — that he’s the right choice for her. That he can give her everything that I can’t. He can love her when I don’t even know the fucking meaning of the word.
When all I ever seem to do is either attack her with my body or make her cry with my cruel words. And when I’m not doing that, I daydream about doing it. About vandalizing her, mauling her, fucking possessing her. Absorbing her in my body so she doesn’t know where she begins and I end.
It’s sick.
Unhealthy. Selfish. Disappointing.
“I have been, yeah. I’ll come by to pick up my check soon,” I quip, feeling angry, more at myself for being such a perpetual disappointment and inadequate. “Now if you’ll excuse me —”
“Does she know?”
“What?”
His anger is full-fledged now, flickering not only through his eyes but also his whole taut body. “You being here. Does she know?”
I’m not gonna lie, my heart fucking clenches up at his words.
At the tone of his words.
Taunting.
Knowing.
“Because I don’t think she’s going to like it. You trolling for pussy while hitting hers.”
“What the fuck’d you say to me?”
He chuckles. “Are you saying that you came here to fucking meditate?”
I take a step closer to him. “I’m saying don’t fucking talk about her like that.”
Another chuckle, this one harder. “Wonder what she’d say if I told her.”
“There’s nothing to fucking tell.”
“That her new boyfriend is on the prowl. On his old hunting grounds no less.”
What the fuck is he talking about?
How the fuck does he know?
About me and her.
To be clear, I don’t fucking care if he does know. That I’m with her. In fact, nothing would bring me more pleasure than rubbing it in his ugly fucking face. That the girl he loves is with me. After years of hiding my feelings and feeling fucking guilty about them, I’d love nothing more than to shout it off the rooftops and scream it in his face.