Four Years Later

  Since when did he grow up and turn into the responsible one?

  We stop outside the kitchen, the two of us just taking it all in. The place is a madhouse. Loud music, louder people, lots of beer, and the living room is filled with smoke, the pungent smell of marijuana permeating the entire house.

  Fucking great. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  “I know how to control myself. You don’t. There’s the difference.” He gives me a shove on the shoulder. “We’re not kids anymore, Owen. It’s one thing to fuck around, get in trouble, and smoke it up all the time when you’re a kid. It’s another thing entirely when you fuck around and do all those same things as an adult. You get arrested, and suddenly you’ve got a permanent record.”

  Valid point. One I never really thought of before, but shit.

  “Don’t let weed control you. Or your guilt, ’cos I know you have a lot of that, too,” Wade says, his voice firm. “Now, I’m gonna go find a girl, feel her up, and drag her back to my bedroom where if I’m lucky enough, I’ll get her naked. You game for finding one for yourself?”

  I shake my head, disgust filling me at the thought of finding some girl I don’t know and dragging her back to my room. “Hell, no.”

  I only want one girl and she’s not here.

  “You still not over her?” Wade’s voice is gentle, like he’s afraid I might freak out if we talk about her for too long, which is probably pretty accurate. Just thinking about her hurts.

  And he doesn’t have to say her name for me to know who he’s talking about. “She’s the reason I needed to take a hit,” I admit. “I thought I saw her at the game earlier, but it wasn’t her.”

  “I saw her, you know,” he says nonchalantly.

  “Where? At the game?” Bastard. Why didn’t he tell me? Not that I would know what to do when I did see her. Still, I’m jealous.

  “Saw her on campus. She ran right by me like she didn’t see me, but I think she did.” Wade rubs a hand along his jaw. “She looked sad.”

  I blow out a harsh breath, training my gaze on the party going down in my living room. Some chick has already taken her top off and all the guys are yelling at her, encouraging her to take off more. She does nothing for me. Her tits are way too big and the bra she’s wearing doesn’t do her any favors. Not that any of those guys are protesting. “Don’t tell me that kind of shit, man.”

  “Whatever. Thought you should know.” Without another word Wade leaves me where I stand and merges into the crowd, plucking a red cup from some random chick’s hand and taking a long swallow before he hands it back to her, a giant smile on his face.

  Just like that, the girl is caught under his spell. Shaggy hair and all. That used to be me, minus the hair. I walked in a room, flashed a smile, said a few words, and I had girls surrounding me. It was easy. Too easy.

  I finally meet a challenge, fall for her, and I mess it up. Can’t find the courage to go back to her and make it right. She was the best thing that ever happened to me and I’m still hiding from her.

  Still.

  Wandering outside, I go to the keg Des brought and pour myself mostly foam, then head out into the yard, away from the party and the noise and the girls. There’s a couple making out behind a tree not too far from where I’m standing, but I ignore them. I pull out my phone and check my texts, pulling up Chelsea’s name. I down the beer in one gulp for courage, realizing the single hit I took off that stupid joint didn’t alter my state of mind much whatsoever.

  I’m still a nervous, bumbling fool, my head filled with thoughts of nothing but Chelsea.

  Dropping the empty cup onto the ground, I hold my phone in both hands, my fingers shaking. My thumbs hover above the keyboard, my heart’s beating about a million miles a second, and I swear I break out in a sweat.

  But I’m doing this. I’m going to message her and tell her the truth. Tell her how I really feel.

  It’s the least I can do.

  Chelsea

  I’m alone. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Kari left almost two weeks ago after she came down with a major bout of mono. Who gets mono anymore? I blame her stupid non-boyfriend Brad. It is, after all, the kissing disease.

  Her mother wanted her to withdraw for the rest of the semester and Kari protested big time, but she was so tired and feverish, her parents made her come home. So she did, worried about leaving me all alone in this stupid apartment I can’t afford, but what else could she do? She’s sick. Not severely, but enough that she’s out of commission for a while.

  Trying to figure out a way to make this work, I took on extra shifts at the diner. I’ve also found more students at school to tutor, but with all the extra work my grades are starting to suffer.

  I’m exhausted. And I’m still broke. I tried to find a roommate but couldn’t, not this late in the semester. Gave notice to my landlord a few days ago, and now he’s anxious for me to move out because he already has new tenants lined up.

  I’m screwed. I have nowhere to go. And I refuse to go back home, though Mom is begging me to on an hourly basis.

  It’s a Saturday night and I’m not working. I already did a graveyard Friday-night shift and my feet are killing me. I have another shift tomorrow, the breakfast rush, and I’m not looking forward to it.

  My life sucks. I don’t know what happened. One minute everything was perfect and bright and filled with happiness and a boy and sex and hope.

  Now I have nothing but darkness and exhaustion and work and studying. It’s colorless, sad. Dim.

  My cell rings and I answer it, listen to Mom rattle on about how we have no more money and she’s been so worried over what to do. I don’t know how to answer her, don’t know what sort of advice to give. I’ve always been her rock, the one who offers comfort when she’s fallen into despair.

  Now I’m the one who feels like she’s lost all hope and Mom’s so focused on her own troubles, she doesn’t even see mine.

  And I have a ton of them, not that I’ve told her anything. I’ve turned into a completely different person and she doesn’t even see it.

  “I talked to your daddy,” she finally says, and I realize she’s been leading up to this the entire conversation.

  I curl up on the overstuffed chair in the living room, soaking up what Mom just said. Kari’s parents took all of her furniture, including the couch. I don’t have much. Kari feels awful, she’s constantly texting me asking if I’m okay, and I wish I could be mad at her.

  But I can’t. She got sick and her overprotective parents whisked her away.

  “Why are you talking to him after everything he did to you?” I ask, though I’m dreading the answer.

  “He wants to help, sweetheart. He understands we’re in a tough predicament and he wants to be there for his family.”

  A little too late for that, if you ask me. “How can he do that when he’s in a prison cell?”

  “Chelsea! Don’t talk about your daddy like that,” Mom chastises.

  I hate it when she calls him my “daddy.” I haven’t called him that in years. I rarely refer to him as anything other than my father. He’s never been a real dad to me. He never really cared.

  “Whatever,” I mumble. “I don’t want his help.”

  “He’s told me where some money is that he stashed before he went to jail. I’m going to withdraw it from the bank and hold it for him. He said I can go ahead and use part of it now,” she explains, sounding perfectly fine with this arrangement. “Don’t you think that’ll be a big help?”

  Unease settles in my stomach, making it turn. “That’s dirty money, Mom.”

  “It is not,” she says, her voice prim. She believes what she wants to believe. That’s how she’s always been with her husband.

  My father.

  He’s a horrible person. Right up there with Owen’s mom.

  My mother, for all her man-hating and constant warnings about how men will treat me awful, how I can’t trust them and I’m better off alone, can’t believe her own
hype. My father is her absolute weakness.

  And she can’t even see it.

  “It’s dirty money. He has some secret account he wants you to clean out so he doesn’t have to do the hard work and possibly get caught after he gets out. You’ll save it for him and when he’s released from prison, you’ll give it to him, think everything will be wonderful and perfect between the two of you, and then he’ll leave you. Again.”

  She’s sputtering, sounding like a plugged-up faucet right before it blows and spits water everywhere. “How dare you say that, Chelsea. He is your father. He may be in prison doing his time, but you shouldn’t judge him for that. Everyone makes mistakes and now he’s paying his dues. He has redeemed himself.”

  “Right. He’s a model citizen. Paying his dues by encouraging you to pull out his dirty money from his secret account.” I pause, wondering if my words are even sinking into her brain. “He’s a real prize, Mom. I refuse to get involved with that sort of thing.”

  “That money will help you survive, which you’re barely doing, might I remind you.”

  Way to rub salt in the wound, Mom. “I don’t want it. He stole it.”

  “We don’t know that,” she starts, but I cut her off.

  “Sure we do. He took it. I don’t want it.” How many times do I need to say it? “I want nothing from him. Absolutely nothing.”

  “I’m not abandoning my husband in his time of need, Chelsea.” Her voice is like ice. “If you’re going to make me choose, be careful. You might not like my decision.”

  She’s threatening me. Letting me know she’d choose him over me. I don’t understand her. I never really have. She’s always such a contradiction, her thoughts, her whims moving with the shift of the wind. Dad wronged her? Men are evil. Dad’s now wooing her with sweet words and endless promises? She needs to stand by her man no matter what.

  I’m sick of it. Sick of the back-and-forth and depending on a man who doesn’t give a crap about us. It’s exhausting.

  They both are.

  “I won’t take the money.” I lean my head back and close my eyes, swallowing hard. “I don’t want you to see him.”

  “Too late. I’ve seen him, many times. We talk on the phone daily. We write each other letters. He’ll be getting out of prison by the end of the year and we’ll be together again.” She sounds happy, so falsely pinning all her hope on this, and I want to smack her. Tell her he’ll disappoint her again. She’s forgetting all of that. Just believing his lies and his empty promises.

  And when he disappoints her yet again and leaves her alone, what will she do? Turn to me?

  “He told me that he’s tried to contact you,” she says, her voice full of disapproval. “And that you hang up on him every single time. You shouldn’t do that, Chelsea. He just wants to talk to you. You’re his daughter, his only child.”

  They won’t have to worry about it any longer because I shut off the house phone, depending only on my cell. Couldn’t afford to keep the landline, which we had only because Kari’s parents insisted on it for safety reasons, whatever that means.

  And cell phones normally can’t take collect calls.

  “I refuse to allow him back into my life, Mom. I’m sorry.” I hang up on her before she can say another word and I stare at my phone screen, wondering if she’ll call back. Counting on her to call back. At least text.

  But she doesn’t. That hurts more than I care to admit.

  Leaning back in my chair, I stare at the ceiling, feeling … hopeless. The beginning of the semester I felt like I had everything. With two jobs and the perfect school schedule, finally out of the dorms and living with my best friend, I was on top of the world.

  Then I meet Owen, and my world is flipped upside down. Everything’s changed. I can’t blame him for all of the changes, but he’s part of it. A big part of it.

  I wish he were still a part of it.

  Closing my eyes, I try to shut off my churning thoughts, my overactive imagination. I can’t go home. I can’t stay in this stupid apartment. I have nowhere. Nothing. No friends, no possibilities. Maybe I could rent a room. Sell what pitiful amount of furniture I have and move in with someone. That could work, and the rent would be way cheaper.

  First thing tomorrow I’m looking for someone with a place to share. Tonight … tonight I’m too tired and too depressed.

  My phone buzzes and I crack open my eyes. I hold it up so I can see who texted me. Probably Kari, crying the blues that she can’t go out on a Saturday night. Or that her parents treat her like she’s on her deathbed when she’s really only sick with stupid mono. Those had been her complaints last night when she texted me.

  These messages aren’t from Kari, though. There’s an endless stream of them, one after another. One heartbreaking sentence at a time.

  I miss you.

  I think about you all the time.

  I dream about you.

  I lied to you and I’m sorry.

  I was embarrassed.

  Ashamed.

  I want to earn your forgiveness but I don’t know how.

  I hold my phone with trembling hands and tears forming in my eyes. I haven’t cried since that night I ran away from Owen. I told myself I was stronger than that. He couldn’t break me. I refused to let him.

  But now, with the truth typed out for me to see, I cry. Quiet, continuous tears that slide down my cheeks, drop from my jaw onto my chest, dampening my shirt. I don’t care. The release feels good. It frees me from everything I’ve held so tight within me for weeks.

  Sniffing, blinking past the tears, I text him back.

  One pitiful sentence at a time, just like the ones he sent to me.

  I miss you, too.

  And I think about you all the time.

  You come to me in my dreams and I don’t want to wake up.

  You lied to me but I lied to you, too.

  Because I was embarrassed.

  And ashamed like you.

  Maybe someday I can tell you about it.

  I wait for his answer, my breathing short, my chest aching. What if he doesn’t reply? Maybe he’s drunk. Maybe he’s … oh God, maybe he’s high and he’s trying to con me into going back to him.

  Maybe, just maybe, I want to be conned. I want to go back to him. I miss him so much. I need him.

  Does he need me?

  My phone buzzes and I look at the screen, my heart in my throat.

  Tell me about it now.

  It would take me forever to text him everything. Before I can reply, I get another message:

  Come over. I want to see you.

  Can I? Am I brave enough? I don’t know. I want to see him. I’m desperate to look at him, smell him, feel his arms come around me and hold me tight.

  Please Chels. I need to see you.

  I need you.

  His last text tells me that I am.

  CHAPTER 21

  Owen

  I wait out by my car for her, wishing for about the ten thousandth time that I’d offered to come pick her up. She probably would have turned me down. I don’t want to push, but I hadn’t expected her to answer my text messages.

  She did. Her words mirrored mine but reflected her own troubles. The secrets she kept from me. I want to hear them. I need to.

  I need to see her.

  Girls approach me outside, one after another, all of them asking if I need anything, do I want something to drink, something to eat, maybe I could take them back to my room and they could help me out in other ways. So many girls are here, looking to score with a football player. Ready to brag to their friends that they snagged one. I don’t want to deal with the groupies and the obvious girls who want nothing more than to get laid.

  I used to be one of those guys who wanted nothing more than to get laid. It didn’t matter with whom or where, I was happy to be getting some.

  I’m not that guy anymore. I want my sweet, smart girl. I need Chelsea.

  Whipping my phone out of my pocket, I check for a message from he
r but there isn’t one. My head is clear, the faint haze from my earlier buzz all gone. I’m focused. Centered. She feels close. I can sense her presence, I swear, and when I glance up I see her. Walking across the street, headed straight for me. Her hair is in a sloppy knot on top of her head, she doesn’t have any makeup on, and she’s wearing the sweatshirt I gave her when we went to Drew’s football game and black leggings that make her legs look like they’re a mile long.

  She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Hi.” She stops directly in front of me, her hands stuffed in the pocket on the front of her sweatshirt, her expression wary but her gaze … hopeful.

  “Hey.” I want to reach out and touch her so bad it’s killing me. “You, uh, walked here?”

  She shrugs. “I’ve had so much crap happen to me lately, I figured I may as well live dangerously and walk. What else can go wrong?”

  Damn. She doesn’t usually talk like this. She’s the positive one in this relationship. “What’s going on, Chels?” I give in to my urge and reach out, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, let my index finger trace the curve of it.

  She releases a shuddery breath and closes her eyes, exhaling softly. “Are you high?”

  “What? No.” Fuck. I need to tell her the truth. “I took one puff on a joint earlier. Wade caught me. I stopped.”

  “Owen …” She shakes her head, the disappointment clear in her voice, and I’m so scared she’s going to leave me for good I don’t know what to do.

  “I was feeling sort of fucked up,” I confess. “I thought I saw you earlier.”

  “Where?” She frowns.

  “At the game. Some girl who looked a lot like you was hanging all over some guy.” I take a deep breath. “I was jealous.”

  “You thought it was me.”

  I nod. “And I just wanted to forget, you know? That’s why I lit up. Then Wade saw me and called me out on my shit. Made me realize I can’t run away from my problems. I need to face them head on.” I stare at her, hoping she realizes what I’m saying.