I’d spent the week hiding in my room while I pretended to go to school and practice. The table ride my dad took me on when I got home from Zeke’s house had left me with a set of fractured ribs. So I spent the week in bed, barely able to breathe. It was the longest week of my life and not until Saturday morning did I even feel close to normal.
Things were definitely getting out of hand and needed to change. I was getting desperate and having crazy thoughts. I was starting to plan my getaway. The plan was to pack the dreaded gray Toyota full of everything I could, kidnap Sydney, and drive until I couldn’t drive anymore. It’s what I really wanted to do, but with my mom hanging on to dear life, literally, I couldn’t bring myself to leave her.
It seemed like the only time I felt alive anymore was when I was with Zeke. He was slowly becoming my freedom. So when Megan texted me and told me Blow Hole was playing at The Pit, I jumped at the chance to see him. Had I known I’d leave The Pit with fractured ribs and a fractured heart, I would’ve stayed my stupid ass in bed.
I wanted to leave right then and go home, but that wasn’t a possibility. I wasn’t sure I’d survive another attack from my dad so soon after the last time I came in late looking like, what he called, a slutty heathen. So I spent the rest of the night playing the third wheel to Megan and Chet. I even followed them back to Finn’s garage and took an already opened drink from some dude I didn’t know. Self destruction was kind of my thing now apparently.
I camouflaged myself in a corner with my red cup full of God knows what and watched as the people around me laughed, got high, and lived free lives. My ribs were still hurting like a bitch, but I didn’t care. And then I looked across the garage and saw Zeke staring back at me and everything changed. The room disappeared, including everyone in it. I felt my nerves go into hyper drive when he started to creep across the room toward me. His eyes never left my face and he had on his signature pissed-off expression.
“I see you’re the original party girl now,” he pointed to my cup.
“I see you took the trash out and dumped her somewhere,” I said, referring to the redhead.
He grinned at me and shifted his bangs out of his eyes. “Do you want me to get you a napkin? There’s a little bit of jealousy on your chin.”
I glared back at him. He was right. I was totally jealous, but at the same time, it was wrong of me to want him for myself when I could never be his. Not in the biblical sense anyway. No guy I knew would ever be okay with never having sex and sex wasn’t an option for me. I didn’t think it ever would be.
“I have nothing to be jealous of.”
I wished I could’ve had a better comeback than that, mostly because it was a big, fat lie, but also because he was so snappy with the comebacks and I wanted to burn his ass with a good one.
His face suddenly got serious. “You’re right. You have nothing to be jealous of.”
I wanted to ask him what that was supposed to mean, but it seemed useless. Instead, I tilted up my cup and took a big swig of the mystery drink. When I brought my cup down, I blurted out the one thing that was eating at me.
“Did you sleep with her?” I asked.
His face was stone-like, dark skin over steel. His eyes cut into mine and I knew I’d gone too far. I sounded like a jealous girlfriend and it was none of my business who he had sex with. I knew that and he knew that.
“You’re a nosey one tonight, aren’t you?”
I didn’t miss the fact that he didn’t answer my question.
“Whatever,” I said as I pulled away from the wall and started to walk away.
He grabbed me around the wrist and pulled me back.
“No,” he said.
That tiny word made everything better and I hated it. Why did I care who he slept with? He was a sexual guy and I was sure he screwed a different girl every chance he got, but somehow seeing it made it real