night, when he thought I was asleep, he sat in the chair next to the bed, and he watched me.
Saying goodbye to Patrick was harder than anything I ever did in my entire life.
Chapter 25
“Life starts all over again
when it gets crisp in the fall.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
Two Falls Later …
Patrick
My senior year at Seashore was fucking miserable.
The day before it started, she told me it was too hard to move forward when she was constantly reminded of what she left behind. She then told me that she loved me enough to let me go. I told her I loved her too much to allow that to happen. We had a million of those conversations while she was in Saudi Arabia.
Then, on December 20th, the last day of fall, she told me I would always be her first love … and she said goodbye.
The next day, I called and was told the phone was no longer in service. I tried to track her location that I never told her about doing, and it was unavailable.
She ended things the day before winter began.
Tris and I got really close that year, and although we didn’t bury any bodies, we did write some music and spent a year on tour; me managing and her singing her angry, little heart out. This summer, she got married to a man she met in Spain.
She’s a seventeen-year-old, platinum-selling artist, and he’s a twenty-five-year-old sculptor.
The amount of women I have gone through in order to forget Savvy is straight-up unknown, or maybe it’s not yet determined. Each one was supposed to remove the taste of her perfect, sweet little pussy from my mouth.
None did.
A couple months ago, we found out Grandma Patrick has breast cancer, and I decided to move to Boston to be closer to her and started school at Boston University.
Life was too short, and I was definitely not spending enough time with some of the people I loved the most, the people I lost sight of while in the fog that hangs over Heartbreak Highway.
Yesterday, I was walking out of the surgeon’s office with my grandmother when she joked, “I think we picked the perfect pair.”
“I think Pops will be pleased.” I winked at her.
Out of the corner of my eye, I swear to God above I saw Savvy walking briskly up the opposite side of the stairs, going into the medical complex. But that would have made absolutely no sense, right? Why would Savvy, the girl with the perfect tits, be going into an office building where it is strictly for breast surgeons who make fake titties?
I blew it off. Blamed it on all the leaves changing colors and beginning to fall.
And now, right fucking now, I’m standing a block and a half down from my building, looking across the street at a raven-haired beauty, who is looking up at a ceramic shop that has a “For Sale” sign on the storefront window.
The universe is fucking with you, man, I tell myself as I watch her walk away.
“I feel like I’ve outgrown this shit,” Kyle, a guy in the majority of my classes, says loud enough for me to hear over the music.
“Whiskey or hunting pussy?”
He laughs. “Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I’ll never outgrow either.”
We tap glasses then shoot back the whiskey.
“Whiskey down, pussy to go.” He laughs.
I scan the bar, a local hotspot that every college in the area—BU, BC, Harvard, and Northwestern—come to party, especially on nights like tonight. Nights with local live bands.
I’m waiting for the day I find one here, but until then, I keep looking around until I find something that looks like it might be of my taste.
But when she turns around, I swear to God, it’s her.
This is fucking ridiculous, I scold myself.
When the girl who looks a lot like Savvy’s jaw drops, I know damn well I’m ninety-nine percent right, even though I’m two sheets to the wind.
And then I see blonde hair mashed between two men.
Savvy, Chloe, Ziggy, and Roach.
The gang’s back together, and I wasn’t fucking invited.
Pissed? Check.
Drunk? Check.
Feeling betrayed? Check.
Check on all the fucking above!
I push through the crowd and watch as Savvy fucking Sutton starts to panic.
I’m ready to flip my shit and tell them all what I think of them. I’m steps away and still basically sober enough to do this in epic fashion … when she smiles and basically lunges at me.
I’m not sure what the fuck possesses me, but I grab two handfuls of her