finally the metal head flies off the wooden handle and I jerk to a stop, my eyes moving around the room, wondering what else I can hit.
But what I want to hit isn’t in this garage.
My buzz builds as I take another swig and head back toward the house. I kick open the back door and stalk to Reece’s room. Without asking, I push it open and turn on the lights. His room is a mess, clothes and shoes and hockey gear in every corner. Everything is out of place, protein wrappers, Gatorade bottles, books, and a laptop littering the floor.
Just another way we’re different. My hands clench.
They scuttle up to the pillows when I barge in.
“What the hell? Privacy, please?” Reece says as he sits up, covering up Veronica at the same time.
I stop at the foot of his bed and it’s all I can do to not yell, but somehow I keep my voice calm. “Veronica is not welcome in this house again. She needs to pack her shit and go.”
Reece looks from me to her and bolts out of bed stark naked, shoving his legs into gym shorts. “This is not just your house. It’s half mine.” He glances back down at Veronica, who’s clinging to the top sheet. “She won’t talk to Sugar again.” His eyes come back to me, and I see the knowledge there. Veronica must have told him what happened. “Besides, don’t you think it was time she knew the truth?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I only told her the truth.”
“You told your truth, isn’t that right?” I glare at Veronica and rage builds. I would never, ever hit a girl, but I want her gone and out of Reece’s life, and there’s only one way to do that. I look back at him. “Tell me, how does it feel to screw a girl who wants me? Do you know how many times I’ve told her to leave me alone? Nice, right? Think about her begging me when you’re hitting it.”
“You’re a dick!” she yells, yanking up her clothes from the carpet beside the bed and trying to put them on under the sheets.
“Get out of my room!” Reece’s skin is mottled, going from red to white and back again.
“Make me,” I snarl back at him. I’m past the point of caring about our precarious relationship. I’m angry and pissed, and Sugar’s gone, and someone’s going to pay.
His chest heaves as he faces off with me, and I’m ready, my shoulders tense, fists clenched.
“You’re losing it, Z!” he yells. “Pretty soon you won’t have anything left if you keep this up.”
Darkness pulls at me, wanting to wound him and make him feel as low as I do right now. “At least I’ll always be better than you at everything.” He shoves at me with his hands and I stumble back against his dresser. I laugh and turn back to face him. “That’s all you got, little brother?”
His face hardens, but he’s not angry enough. He’s not there yet, and I need him pissed. I need him livid, and I know how to get him going.
I know his little weakness.
I get in his face and push at his chest. “You loved Willow and I always knew. She told me. She laughed about it.”
At first, his mouth opens and he stumbles back, but then he steps forward, his eyes ablaze. “Yeah? So what? I did love her. I loved her more than you did. I was there when you weren’t. I watched her drive away that night.”
Pain and guilt slam into me, and my jaw goes slack at the gaping wound he opens.
Then he hits me square in the face and everything goes black.
35
Sugar
I want to die.
A week goes by in a blur. It feels like the world should stop and wait for me to catch my breath, to wait for this awful emptiness to ease, but it doesn’t. I spend the first two days without him in my bed tossing and turning, angry and pissed off at myself for trusting him. By the time Wednesday hits, I’m curled up with a pillow, trying to smell the remnants of him as I re-watch Game of Thrones and cry. Julia calls Taylor and Poppy, and they come over and beg me to leave the dorm room and go to class. But I can’t. My room is our place. It’s where we made love and laughed. It’s where he gave me the penguin. By Friday, I feel empty, a