Chapter 3
chapter three
I looked up from the never-ending shot of vodka in my palm, its bottled home sitting right beside me. I knew that voice. Though it sounded deeper and raspier than I remembered, I fucking knew it without a doubt.
Callum Stanton, the boy whose heart I’d shattered to pieces when I’d run from everything and everyone I knew and loved.
He’d asked me a question, but the alcohol was doing its job for once, and the wave of panic from seeing him had overridden every other instinct in me.
All but one, and the one remaining, was telling me to run.
He looked good. He looked older. I was sure we both did, though I couldn’t remember how I looked when I was younger. I’d refused to acknowledge my body as mine so long ago, I hardly knew anything about it anymore.
The hazel beauty in his eyes had turned glossy—probably years’ worth of tears struggling with the idea of not letting go. Why wasn’t he letting them go? Just let them go, Callum. Let them fall. Let me see the fucking pain I’ve put you through for all this time.
I looked back down at the glass on the table. “No. I don’t come to this side of town.”
He hummed and shuffled in his seat. Was he uncomfortable, or was he scared about facing his monster? “Where have you been, then?”
“Here. There. Everywhere. I’ve been on the west side for, like, two years, I think.”
“What about the other eight?”
My eyes shot up, staring directly into his. I could feel it. I could feel everything. His anger, his resentment, his hatred for me. “Here. There. Everywhere, like I just told you.”
“Hm. I hate how vague you’re being.”
“What, do you want my three last known street addresses? I don’t understand why you’re so desperate to know.”
His eyebrows pulled down as he stared at me, his lips set in a tight line. “Why I’m so desperate to know? Gee, I don’t know, Tobi. Maybe it’s because it’s been ten fucking years since you ghosted me and everyone else? I thought we were good. I thought we had a good thing going.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I? Isn’t that all that matters?”
“No. That isn’t all that matters. What matters is that I can feel my heart fucking breaking while I’m sitting here staring at a stranger who I used to love. Who I still love. You aren’t supposed to be a stranger, Tobes. You were supposed to be my forever.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? Fucking oh?” His breath caught in his throat. His eyes glazed over, tears washing the gorgeous green and brown away from his irises. I missed them already. “That’s all you have to say?”
No, it’s not all I have to say, but I can’t say everything I want to say. I can’t because I am your boogeyman. I am your monster. I am your demon and destroyer. I am nothing but bad luck on a good day and the path of devastation they talk about in the Bible.
I’d missed him. God, how I had missed him.
I missed the solitary nights we’d spent together, lying in his bed with a full five inches of space in between us because if we were any closer, I would’ve gone into a panic.
I missed the gentle kisses and the swift brushes of his fingertips atop my skin when I could handle it.
I missed the way he was never angry with me when I couldn’t.
I missed his laugh. I missed how loud and melodic it sounded in the air, a never-swift, never-shy cackle against the birds that chirped outside the windows.
We never did more than kiss. We’d never cuddled more than ten minutes at a time.
But we were working up to it—working up to the idea that I could differentiate his touch from all the ones who’d ruined me.
Of course, that wasn’t all I wanted to say. It was just all I thought I deserved to say. All I brought was the cycle of grief and devastation that followed me, and Callum was too precious, too important, and too valuable to ruin with the touch of my decay.
Once upon a time, Callum had been in love with me, and I had been in love with him, and everything was perfect. But that story had ended, and the new one didn’t have a happy ending.
The bartender—Jack from yesterday—came up to our table. “Everything good?”
Callum nodded without looking at him. “Yeah, we’re fine.”
“You know this guy?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, do you wanna go smoke with me?”
Callum shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Catching up with an old friend.”
“Suit yourself.” Jack turned to me. “Good seeing you again, by the way. Glad the cold didn’t get you.”
Honestly, I wished it had. I wasn’t going to say that, though. “Likewise.”
Jack walked away, pulling a lighter out of his pocket. I never did like that Callum was a smoker. It didn’t make sense for someone so good as him on the inside to poison himself like that. How hypocritical of me that was now.
We rested in an uncomfortable lull, silence passing between us. Like wind dragging along a ship’s sails, barely brushing them, yet with just enough force to push the ship in a new direction. The wrong direction.
Callum sniffed and swiped a finger under his nose. “They miss you, you know.”
I closed my eyes—just for a moment. Just long enough to let his statement sink in and make a home where my heart should’ve been.
Then, I picked up my shot glass and threw it back, wincing at the burn down my throat.
I didn’t have a chaser. Didn’t care enough to use one. It was all going to go down the same.
Though I already knew, I looked up and captured his burning gaze once more. “Who?”
“All of them. Price, Jesse, Liam, Isaac, and Willow. The entire OG staff. But you know who misses you the most? Crew. He misses you the most out of all of them. He won’t say that.
But he won’t even say your name because it hurts too much.
I think he still thinks what happened to you guys was his fault, despite all the fucking therapy he’s been through.
And the fact that you’ve told him it wasn’t a million times over. ”
I was already shaking my head, my brain swimming in my skull with each movement, a drunken haze taking over my awareness. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know that, but he doesn’t seem to get that, Tobi. I mean, honestly, what else is he meant to think? You up and left one day. No goodbye. No explanation.”
“It wasn’t his fault, Callum.”
“I know.”
“It was never his fault. It was Thompson.”
“I know.”
Did he? Thompson started the cycle, but he wasn’t who it ended with, and that fact ate me the fuck up from the inside out. He put a target on my back for everyone and everything else bad in my life. It never ended and was never going to.
Gripping the vodka bottle that’d been sitting beside me, I averted my gaze.
“No matter what I say, it ain’t gonna change what he thinks or how he feels.
I already tried that. It don’t matter if you say they miss me, Cal.
You can say that all you want, but I bet deep in their gut, they despise me. Just like you do.”
“Your accent.”
Sighing, I poured another shot. “What about it?”
“It’s not as thick as it used to be.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“I miss it.”
What an odd thing to say.
“I miss the way you used to say certain words and constantly left parts of them off. You say things with a drawl, but it isn’t…” He trailed off for a moment. “It’s like Crew’s now. It’s there but diluted with the city.”
I huffed a laugh. “This city was meant to make all my big dreams come true. Instead, all it’s done is poison me. Changed me.”
“The city can’t change you. People and life can. You may seem like a real asshole right now, but I know the real you is under there somewhere.”
“This is the real me.”
Callum reached across the table, grabbing the vodka bottle and pulling it toward him, away from me. It was almost empty, but I wanted to finish it. “No, it isn’t. The real you isn’t this cold and guarded.”
Picking up the shot glass, I placed it right in front of my eyes and peered through it, watching it distort his image. “Maybe I should’ve been this way the whole time. Maybe this was the real me, and I was just fakin’ it around you.”
“I don’t believe that. I think you’re lying.”
“You can call me a liar all you want, Callum, but I know the truth better than you do.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
“No.”
He stared at me for a moment before scrubbing a hand over his face. “Alright, then. Do you come here every day?”
I shrugged.
“Cool. Thanks for being so very open with me.” His tone was laced with snark and sarcasm as he slowly stood from his seat. “I’ll figure the truth out one day.”
“You won’t.”
“I will. I’m not going to give up, Tobi. Just because you gave up on us so easily doesn’t mean I ever gave up on you.”
I opened and closed my mouth, grasping for something to say. I couldn’t find any, though. He should have. He should. He should give up on me—just give up and forget I ever existed and pretend like he never saw me here.
Callum turned away, still holding the bottle of vodka. “Oh, and no, they don’t despise you. And neither do I. I know the truth better than you do.”
I watched him, helpless, as he walked away. The man I’d considered my one true love had just stolen my vodka, fucked with my head, and turned his back on me so fucking easily, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been imagining it.
Callum. A name I hadn’t thought about in years. But I’d never stopped thinking about his scent, or his soul, or the pure, sunshiney warmth he emitted from across the damn room.
I still loved him. I just didn’t deserve him.