When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys #2) - Emma Scott Page 0,32
it happen.”
“Holy shit… How old were you?”
“Eight. He went to prison and died there. I went into foster care.”
My heart ached and I couldn’t think of anything to say, except that I hated Ronan carried that kind of pain. I wished I could erase it or carry it for him. I had enough baggage. One more shit-tastic memory wouldn’t kill me.
“I was pretty messed up,” Ronan said, his eyes on the dying fire. “I had to repeat fourth grade and did ten years in foster care. Eventually, social services tracked down my mother’s brother. That’s how I ended up here.”
“I’m so sorry about your mother, Ronan.”
He nodded and a silence fell that should’ve been awkward or uncomfortable, but instead I felt our friendship cement into something more solid with every passing minute. The sun began to sink, the sky bruised yet beautiful. Peaceful.
“Well, aren’t we a jolly pair,” I said after a while. “Tell me something good that happened to you today, Wentz. Anything. Before I throw myself into the ocean.”
He rubbed his stubbled chin, thinking. “I didn’t get suspended.”
“Hey, there you go! A two-day streak.” I offered up a high-five and got a resounding smack on the palm. I hissed a breath and shook my stinging hand. “Easy, tiger.”
Ronan almost smiled. “Your turn. Something good.”
“Hmm, don’t know that it’s good so much as doomed and hopeless but…” I heaved a sigh. “There’s a guy.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t say who, so don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Of course, you weren’t,” I said. “That’s one of your most endearing characteristics. Anyway, there’s a guy and I don’t want there to be a guy. Not one that I might…”
“Want to fuck?”
“That’s a given.”
“Care about?”
“Exactly. And I can’t care about anyone. Bad for me, worse for them.” I stared into the flames that clung to ashen wood while the breeze tried to blow them out. “It’s stupid. And too soon. I didn’t come here to immediately have my every waking thought hijacked by someone I’ve only known for a few days.”
Ronan’s eyes widened.
“No, it’s not Miller,” I said, laughing. “And I hate to break your heart, but it’s not you either.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that the guy in question is not my type, to put it mildly. An All-American good boy. Warm, gooey, everyone loves him. He’s the human equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“So?”
“So? It doesn’t make sense. And yet I can’t stop thinking about him and feeling guilty, because…I may have said some things I shouldn’t have.”
Ronan took a pull of beer. “I’m shocked.”
“Oh, shut up. But yes, I stirred up some shit for him that I had no business stirring. I even gave him my number in the event he wants to talk. To me. As if I could actually help somehow.” I shook my head with a dry laugh. “It’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I’m not one hundred percent positive that he and I are on the same page, if you catch my drift. I need to leave it alone. Leave him alone.”
Ronan rolled his eyes and chucked a rock into the fire.
“You disagree?”
“If you care about him—”
“Let’s not go that far.”
“—then tell him.”
“That proves difficult, since he specifically asked that I never speak to him again. And even if by some miracle he were gay, nothing good can come of something with me. Except for sex. I can do meaningless sex.” I glanced at him. “That’s not an offer, by the way.”
Ronan didn’t crack a smile.
I took a sip from my flask, wishing the bite of vodka would kill that soft feeling in my stomach that had been living there since the day I met River.
The fire flared suddenly as Ronan spewed lighter fluid over the charred embers. “Is that what they stole from you in Alaska?”
“What…?”
“You said nothing good could come of you being with that guy. Is that what they taught you? That you’re no good?”
The doctors at the sanitarium had discussed the conversion therapy more than I ever wanted to discuss it, with convoluted terms and jargon and analysis. Ronan cut it down to its most essential element.
“Yes,” I said. “But it began earlier with my parents. And it’s more complicated—”
“It’s bullshit, is what it is,” Ronan snapped. “Whoever made you think that, no matter when it started, it’s bullshit.”
He drained his beer and got up for another. He came back with two and stood over me, his expression softer than I’d ever seen it. He offered one of the beers to me.