Chapter 2
2
BECK
“ A nya, can you just wait until I get home? Please?”
My stepsister groaned on the other end of the line, and I tried not to laugh. It would shatter the illusion that I was the adult here and she should listen to my authority without question.
I was her guardian and I had to act like it. Sometimes, at least.
“Fine, but I’m at least gonna put the logs in. Can I do that, your highness?”
I did chuckle then. She wanted to start a fire in the family room fireplace because it was snowing, and I honestly didn’t trust her not to burn the house down. “I’ll allow it,” I said, starting my car up and waiting until the call switched over to the Bluetooth connection.
Anya’s voice came through the speakers, and she sounded every bit the spunky fourteen-year-old she was. “Lovely, sooo grateful his lordship will allow it. When will you be home?”
I glanced at the clock on the dash. It was almost three in the afternoon. Anya and I lived in a house about a ten minute drive from campus, a big two-story contemporary that she’d grown up in. My mom and her dad got married when I was fourteen, but her dad passed away ten months later in a tragic accident when he fell from a ladder while cleaning the gutters. Anya was just eight at the time, so my mom helped get the legal shit figured out. As much as she could, at least. He’d left Anya everything in his will—and everything meant the house and two million dollars.
Anya was devastated when he died. Had clung to me like I was her only lifeline, and I didn’t mind being what she needed because I needed her, too. She sure as fuck wasn’t getting any comfort from my mom, who wasn’t even sober during that time. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever really been sober, but there were a few stretches of time that I thought maybe she might’ve been trying. Maybe she wanted to change, maybe she thought she could do it. She wasn’t a bad mother. For the most part, she was still loving and caring and tried to give me everything she thought I needed. She just had an addiction that she couldn’t shake. I didn’t think she wanted to shake it, in all honesty.
But when I turned eighteen, my mom left us, too. Not by dying. No, she found herself a new lover that enjoyed alcohol as much as she did, and ran off with him. By that point, she’d completely lost herself to her addiction, and truth be told, I was relieved she was gone, underneath all the anger and betrayal. I wouldn’t have to pretend that she could possibly get better anymore. I wouldn’t have to keep trying to help her get better, despite knowing it was useless because she didn’t actually want to stop.
After she left, I fought for legal guardianship of Anya when the courts threatened to put her in the foster system because no one could get ahold of my mom. I’d been working since I turned sixteen, had saved every penny, and was able to hire a lawyer and fight for guardianship.
I won.
So now it was just me and Anya, living in a big house by ourselves. We looked out for each other in ways our parents never had, and if that reminded me of Gavin and everything he’d once meant to me, I didn’t acknowledge it. She filled in part of a missing piece, cemented over the gaping hole in my chest, and reminded me that there were reasons to keep going. I was lucky to have her in my life.
I was lucky to have anyone at all.
I was lucky.
I was.
“I should be home in ten minutes, I’m just leaving practice now,” I told her, turning on the windshield wipers. This storm had come out of nowhere, a mid-March Nor’easter that seemed like it might stick around for days.
“Cool cool cool, okay, well I’ve got a delicious surprise waiting for you when you get here!”
Anya’s love language was making food for people, and I benefitted greatly from it.
“Awesome, can’t wait. Love you, A.”
“Love you, B. Byeeee!”
I chuckled and hung up. My muscles ached from the drills Coach had us do yesterday and today, and I planned on taking a long, hot bath when I got home. And judging by the way the snow was falling, I thought we might not have practice for a couple days, either, which would give my muscles more time to recuperate.
I pulled out of the lot and started down Hudson Street. I barely got halfway before slowing the car to a stop.
There was a person lying on the sidewalk.
It was hard to see them through the thick flurry of snow; their light gray attire blended into the white beneath them and accumulating on top of them.
But I recognized that gym bag. I had the same exact one, and there was only one other person on our wrestling team that also trained in jiu-jitsu.
My mouth dried up, and I squeezed the wheel so hard the leather whined under my grip.
What in the fuck was he doing? Just being a giant, melodramatic asshole? Was he even conscious? No, it wasn’t my problem. I should just keep driving, let him keep doing whatever the fuck it was he was doing.
But I just sat there, my car idling as the snow blew around it, my wipers furiously squeaking as they kept the windshield clear. I just sat there and watched him. He wasn’t moving at all, and I wondered if there was something medically wrong with him.
Maybe. He’d thrown up back at the gym. He might be sick with something.
I didn’t want to fucking help him. I really didn’t. No one deserved help less than Gavin Forster.
Since we were fourteen years old, he’d made it his mission to let me know just how much he hated me. How much he despised what I was. How much he couldn’t stand to look at me, touch me, be around me.
He was a mean motherfucker that didn’t know how to do anything but spew hate and dole out violence.
And yet, there he lay, motionless, outside in a snowstorm. If I drove away now and he wound up dead because I didn’t help him, I’d never forgive myself.
“You stupid fucking asshole,” I muttered, turning the car off and yanking my hood up before opening the door. “Gavin!” I called out, stomping through the snow toward him.
He didn’t move.
Fear sliced through me then, and I hated that I cared at all if he was suffering.
“Hey! Gavin!” When I reached him, I nudged his foot with mine. He yanked his leg up and away from me, as if me touching him like that would infect him with some disease.
“Fuck off, Beck.”
Something dark moved beneath my skin. Despite how weak he sounded, I let the irritation take hold. “What the fuck are you doing, you moron? Are you trying to die? It’s fucking snowing, if you hadn’t noticed.”
He didn’t even respond to me, and that only pissed me off even more. “Get up, asshole, I’m taking you home. Let’s go, before you freeze to death in this person’s yard and scar them for life.”
He didn’t move, didn’t say a word, just kept lying there letting all that snow pile on top of him. Like he was more than happy to be buried beneath its weight.
I was honestly incredulous. I’d never seen him like this, and again I wondered if he was having some kind of medical emergency. “Do you need me to take you to the hospital? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He said nothing.
I finally noticed how hard he was shivering, and that was it for me. “Get up. Get the fuck up, let’s go,” I growled, bending down and grabbing the front of his sweatshirt. It was freezing cold and soaking wet.
I dragged him upright and he immediately wrapped his frigid hands around mine. Now that the hood wasn’t blocking his face, I could see that he looked too fucking pale, his lips were almost blue, and there was a dullness in his eyes I’d never seen before. They were usually lit with anger, burning with animosity reserved just for me. Except lately, he was raging at the entire world, like everyone and everything had become his enemy.
His honey-brown eyes stared into mine for a long moment that stretched into an eternity. The snow flew around him, whipping into his face, sticking to his dark lashes, but he kept his eyes on mine. I thought I saw something in them, something?—
Gavin growled like an animal, ripping my hands off his hoodie and kicking at my shins, his lip pulled up in an ugly sneer. “Get the fuck away from me, you freak!”
I stepped out of range of his kicks. I wanted to leave him there. I really fucking did. There was honestly nothing I wanted to do more, in that moment.
Fuck Gavin and all his disgusting hatred. I didn’t need that shit in my life.
But…
“Just get in the fucking car, Gavin. Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Fuck off , Beck. Fuck off. I’m not getting in that fucking car with you,” he rasped as he glared up at me. His teeth chattered and he made a v-v-v-vuh sound as his entire body shivered violently.
A stubborn bastard to the very end.
I walked to the car and opened the passenger door. Then I walked back to him, kicking up snow, and moved behind him before he could react. He tried to turn, tried to grab my arms and stop me from sliding one under his armpit and winding it around the back of his neck, tried to squirm out of the half nelson I put him in, but he wasn’t getting out of it and he knew it. He went limp after a moment, breathing heavily, almost wheezing because of the cold air.
“I fucking hate you,” he hissed, shaking himself in my hold just once. He reached back with his free hand, trying to find some part of me he could get a grip on, but I just grabbed onto his forearm and wrapped his arm around his chest, holding it tight against him. Feeling him straining against the hold, trying to fight against my strength with his own, sent a zing of excitement through me, but I quickly shoved it aside.
Nothing about Gavin was fucking exciting .
“Yeah, I know,” I grated out, hauling him to his feet. He tried to stomp his heel into my foot, so I jerked him against me tight. He made a startled sound as his ass slotted against my groin and the top of my thighs, and I almost missed the whimper that followed it.
My blood heated, but that heat quickly died when he snarled with an almost frantic desperation, “You’re a fucking pervert freak, Beck. Let go of me right the fuck now !”
I shook him roughly and laughed without any humor, his words sliding inside me to land on top of all the other ones he’d given me over the years. I was filled with a junkyard of his hate, endless piles of it that always grew taller when he was around.
I dragged him to the car, lifted him, and practically threw him onto the passenger seat. Then I grabbed his bag and shoved it onto his lap, slamming the door before he could say or do a single thing.
I expected him to just get out of the car and walk away. I would let him if he did. I wouldn’t go after him again, because fuck that. Fuck him. At this point, I could live with myself and say that I’d tried.
But he didn’t get out. When I slid behind the wheel again, glad to be back in the heat of my car, he just sat there staring out the windshield, clutching his bag in his shaking arms.
I started the car and didn’t say another word to him, driving slowly through town because the snow had picked up even more and was nearly impossible to see through. When I turned onto his street, he said quietly, “I don’t live there anymore.”
I glanced over at him to find him looking at me with a guarded expression. Gone was all the hate from earlier; in its place was a steel wall so thick and high it would take eons to break through.
I wondered briefly if the boy I’d known was somewhere behind that wall, banging his fists against it, wishing he could find a way out.
“Then where do you live?”
“On Fifth Street.”
That was where a lot of student housing was. When had he moved out of his dad’s house?
Didn’t matter. Didn’t matter where he lived, didn’t matter what was behind that steel wall, didn’t matter if his strange apathy was starting to unnerve me.
It did not fucking matter.
I drove past his house, then past my old house, and made a left at the end of the street.
Fifth Street was a few miles away, and I didn’t say anything else to him. There was nothing more to say anyway. I was busy trying to get his ringing words out of my ears, trying to get the look in his eyes out of my head, trying to forget he even existed.
All I wanted to do was forget him.
But that was impossible. Innumerable memories tangled themselves around my soul, chaining me to him more effectively than anything physical ever could. They threatened to drown me in a sadness so deep and blue it was almost endless.
“Coach is gonna make you captain,” Gavin said out of nowhere, jolting me from my thoughts.
“What?”
Gavin grunted, and I looked over at him to find him watching me. Again. A cruel smile stretched across his face, malice in his eyes. “Yeah. Congrats, golden boy. Who knew a homo could?—”
I hit the brakes and snatched up the front of his hoodie, dragging him toward me as I got in his face. “Say that word again, Gavin. I fucking dare you. Call me that again,” I growled, loathing burning through me like a wildfire.
God, I was fucking delusional for thinking any good part of him from our childhood was left. He wasn’t in there, and the person who’d replaced him was disgusting and foul and unworthy.
Gavin’s lip curled up in an ugly sneer, and then he whipped his head forward, smashing his forehead into the bridge of my nose so hard my vision winked out. I yelled and threw him into the passenger door, heard a thunk as his head smacked back against the window. He groaned and then started laughing. I just sat there and stared at him in shock.
Was he having a full-on mental breakdown? Jesus fucking Christ, he’d lost it.
“Get out,” I said hoarsely. “Get the fuck out of my car, you piece of shit.”
He laughed and laughed, and just when I thought I’d have to drag him out myself, he stopped laughing abruptly and popped open the door. A draft of icy air slithered inside as he stepped out, gym bag in hand, and said, “See ya later, Captain.”
Then he slammed the door and started trudging through the snow, just a blot of gray in a sea of white. I stared at him until he disappeared into the storm, and I wished I could throw all these fucked up feelings he’d unearthed at him and make him carry them away, until they all disappeared with him.
“What’s wrong?” Anya asked as soon as I walked into the kitchen.
I shook my head. “Nothing, just a teammate being a dick.”
“You need me to beat him up for you?”
I huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, would you mind? He’s only six one and two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle. You can handle that, right?”
“Easily,” she replied, giving me a lopsided smile that melted my heart.
I walked over to her and wrapped her in my arms, smacking a kiss onto the top of her head. “You wanna start that fire? Let me show you how it’s done so in the event of an apocalypse where I die first, you won’t burn the house down?”
She pushed out of my arms. “Shut up, you’re not dying. You’re, like, unbreakable. Or like Bruce Willis in that movie Unbreakable . You can’t get hurt and you can’t die. Well, until you drown. Never mind. Forget I mentioned that. You’re like Superman.”
“He can die. Kryptonite, remember?”
“Ugh, are there any that can’t actually die?”
“Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen .”
“I don’t know that one.”
“We can watch it, if you want. Looks like we’ll be holed up for a while, with the way that storm’s going.”
Anya turned to look out the window in the back door, where the snow was coming down hard. “Yeah, I just hope we won’t starve.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said, moving to the fridge. “What was this delicious surprise you said you have for me?”
“Oh yeah—close your eyes and hold out your hands!”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re not gonna put jello in my hands again, are you? I’m not falling for that twice.” Anya loved to play pranks and joke around, and I would not put it past her to pull the same one twice.
She pursed her lips. “No, that’s old, been there done that. I promise I’m not gonna put anything slimy or gooey in your hands.” She raised two fingers in Scout’s honor, which did nothing to make me trust her.
But she was my mischievous little imp, and I loved her. Her big brown eyes implored me to believe her, so I said, “Okay, fine.”
I closed my eyes and held out my hands. Two seconds later I felt something gooey and sticky hit my skin. I sighed and opened my eyes, staring down at the red jello jiggling in my palms. “Hilarious,” I said.
Anya cackled and clapped her hands together, then darted toward the fridge. “Okay, that was a joke, but I really did make you something, I promise for real this time!”
I walked to the sink and dumped the jello in, washed my hands, then turned and leaned back against the counter. “I’m keeping my eyes open this time.”
She snickered and said, “That’s fine,” as she rifled through the fridge. When she pulled out a bundt cake, I pushed off the counter and snatched it from her hands.
“Hell yes, I knew there was a reason I kept you around,” I said, setting it on the counter and pulling open the silverware drawer to get a knife and fork.
This was exactly what I needed after the nightmare I’d just been stuck in.
“Well that was rude,” Anya said, sliding onto one of the island counter barstools.
“Do you want any?” I glanced at her as I cut a slice for myself that was one third of the cake. Fuck, I forgot to get a?—
Anya slid a plate over to me, raising her brows and smiling.
“Thanks,” I said, sliding the enormous slice onto the plate.
“No, I had like three cupcakes today, I’m good.”
“Did you eat anything green today? Or this week?”
“Nope, I’m not into that color. I like beige and red and brown. Sometimes blue. But green? Nah.”
I shook my head at her and took my first bite. “Oh my god,” I said around the food. “It’s lemon. You’re actually perfect, A.”
“Yup, I know. Bask in my greatness, peasant!” She threw her arms as wide as her grin, and I couldn’t stop my own smile from spreading.
Fuck Gavin and his bullshit. I was graduating in two months, so I only had to endure it for a little while longer, and then I’d never, ever have to deal with him again.
Ever.