26. Together Again
26
Together Again
WINTER
Haze slouches against the couch and conceals his face with his right hand, as though he’s hoping it’ll make him any less vulnerable, any less broken . I’ve never seen him clearer. His life made him this way. Not just his parents, not just Desiree, not even crazy Tanner. Everything he’s gone through shaped him into the man he is today.
He’s been blaming himself ever since that night. He thinks he’s responsible for his little sister’s death, and he’s been living with that guilt. This guilt that no sane human can possibly carry without shutting down.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
Tears of anger glint at his eyes. The story isn’t over, I can tell. But he needs a minute. So I give it to him.
“She was cold. She was so cold.” He chokes on the words, and I feel like I’m right there, with him, alone in the darkness of the Adamses’ mansion. I feel like I’m the one watching the life being sucked out of my sister as the capacity to hope leaves my body forever. “I didn’t know what to do. She was crying and… there was so much blood. So much… So I just held her until she… she…” He can’t seem to say it at first . “I watched her die. ”
Then, he can’t take it any longer. Tears cascade down his face, and I find myself crying, too. I open my arms to him, and he accepts my embrace, leaning into me. He doesn’t say anything. He lets me hold him.
I’ve never seen Haze really lose it before. I’ve seen him shed a tear, yes, but I’ve never seen him have a full-blown panic attack. He can barely breathe, his chest moving up and down uncontrollably fast in my arms. Do you ever truly know someone until you’ve seen them completely fall apart? He’s fighting his tears… fighting himself.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here,” I repeat and hold him tighter. “Just breathe with me. Breathe.” I inhale and exhale repeatedly until, eventually, he matches my breathing patterns and clears his throat. He sits back up and looks in the opposite direction. He hates being vulnerable.
“Seven days later, the house was gone. We moved to Florida two weeks after. My parents never cried in front of us. Not once. The night of her funeral, I heard my dad say to my mom that I was weak. That I should’ve saved her. He never looked at me the same way again.”
This is why he started fighting.
“Tanner suggested to train me. I started working out every single day so that I’d never be weak again. I refused to be a helpless little bitch who couldn’t defend himself anymore. Then, when we moved here, we heard about the fights and… you know the rest.”
He started fighting and training every day so that he’d never lose someone else. He was fourteen years old, for Pete’s sake. He was so young. It’s no wonder he couldn’t stand up to two grown men with guns. Why do I feel like becoming a fighter was secretly his way of punishing himself?
“Did they ever catch him? Marcus?”
He clenches his fists at my question. That’s my answer. The combination of so much pain and anger in one person can’t end well. The way his life turned out is the mere example of that.
“No.”
It all makes sense now.
“I wanted to tell you, Winter, I swear. You have no idea how many times I almost did. But… you’re the brightest thing in my life, and this is the darkest one of all.”
I have no reason to doubt him anymore. He told me about the biggest trauma of his life. My eyes descend to the numbers tattooed on his forearm. 04/16 . I’ve been wondering what it meant since the day I met him.
“Is that the date she died?” My fingers gently brush his skin.
“No. God, no. She deserved better than that.” He shakes his head. “That’s the date she was born.”
I wait for him to elaborate.
“I didn’t want to remember the day that I lost her. I wanted to remember all the years that I didn’t.”
I understand what he means by that. He didn’t want to ink himself with the tragic date when she was taken away. He wanted to honor her life by celebrating the time he got to spend with her.
“It wasn’t your fault. Please tell me you know that.” I interlace our fingers and run my thumb along the palm of his hand. He draws a breath. I know better than to think me saying it to him once will be enough to end a lifetime of Haze blaming himself.
“Yes, it was. She’d still be here if I’d just been stronger. I could’ve saved her.” He blames himself some more.
“No, that’s the thing, you couldn’t have. You were a kid, Haze.” I lift his chin up with my right hand. “None of this is your fault. None of it.”
He doesn’t argue with me, even though he clearly wants to, and stares in silence like he’s having an awakening. Then, after a few seconds, he speaks.
“I love you so much.”
I don’t say it back. I smile through the pain and let my body do the talking. I push the void between us aside and kiss him like I’ll never get a chance to taste his lips again. I want him to know how much what he just did means to me. His mouth recognizes mine as he circles my wrist and pulls me on top of him to deepen the kiss. My legs fall on both side of his body while his fingers venture into my hair. His hands clinging to my waist make me feel like an addict relapsing after working so hard to get clean. He’s a drug, and deep down I know… I could spend the rest of my life trying to get sober from Haze Adams.
His fingers wriggle under my shirt and dig into the hollow of my hips. If we keep this up, this will end the same way the dream I had this morning did.
He whispers against my mouth. “Does that mean that we’re back together?”
“I don’t know. Does it?” I say, unbuttoning his shirt.
He knows we’re back together. This isn’t even a question. My hands slip on his bare torso and trace the definition of his stomach. They curve around his muscular body, roaming downward and stopping right above his belt. I rest my fingers on the buckle and analyze his expression carefully.
Are we doing this?
He gives me the green light by pushing my head back to his and kissing me again.
We’re interrupted by his phone ringing.
He scoops it up, takes a quick peek at the screen, and declines the call, but it immediately rings again. He curses and presses the Decline button once more. He goes back in for a kiss but—big surprise—it rings for a third time.
“It’s one of my guys. It must be important.” He sighs and I nod in disappointment. I start to move off his lap, but he grips my hips and presses me down onto him. “Don’t. It shouldn’t be too long.” He strokes my bare arm.
He picks up.
“What?” he snaps.
I can’t hear what’s being said on the other end.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” he growls, obviously not pleased with the news he’s getting. “I told you, I’m off to try and fix things with the North side.”
So that’s the ridiculous excuse he had to come up with for them to let him go…
“I’m not with her. How many times am I going to have to say it?”
They’re onto him. They know something’s going on. He won’t be able to keep lying for long.
“What? Trev, hold on, slow down.”
This makes me realize that I don’t know anything about his fighters. He never brings them up.
“Okay, damn! I heard you.”
He hangs up, throws his phone on the couch, and curses.
“Let me guess, you have to go,” I say.
“I’m sorry. Trust me, you have no idea how much I’d rather stay and strip you naked right now.” He tightens his grasp on my waist for a second, fighting himself. Then, he curses and takes his hands off me. “I’ll get you a cab. We can’t risk them seeing us together. They’re way too suspicious.”
I shift away from him.
“So what if they find out about us? What are they going to do? Kill me?” I joke, but Haze doesn’t laugh, which tells me that this is a lot more serious than I thought.
“You don’t need to worry about that because that’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.” He smiles and furthers himself from me to call a cab.
He comes back two minutes later.
“The cab will be here in five.”
I nod. His eyes flash.
“Hold on.”
He sprints to his room. I hear him move stuff around until he finds what he’s looking for. He walks back into the kitchen with…
Is he serious?
“I want you to have this.” He hands it to me.
I crinkle my nose. “Pepper spray?”
“Keep it with you at all times, okay?”
“Is it really that bad?”
He knows where I’m going with this. Are his fighters coming after me? Should I be worried?
“No, it’s just… you never know what could happen. Promise me you’ll carry it everywhere.”
I exhale. “Haze…”
“Winter, promise me.” His piercing pale eyes drill into mine.
“Okay. I promise.” I give in and go drop my new friend into my backpack. When I come back, Haze pulls me into his familiar arms, kissing my forehead and playing with my hair. He doesn’t want me to worry, but I can’t help it. He’s kidding himself if he thinks he can be with me and still lead them.
If there’s one thing that I learned about the street fight community… it’s that they’ll find out eventually.
They always do.