Chapter Six
Paisley
Six Years Earlier
“NASH,” I CALL OUT SOFTLY as I reach the clearing of the trees that opens to a rocky incline.
When he doesn’t answer right away, I’m not sure if he’s here, but knowing Nash, I can’t imagine he’d go anywhere else.
When he didn’t come to school today, I knew something was wrong. He never misses without telling me first. But not only did he not tell me, I haven’t heard a single word from him since last night, and for us, that is saying something, considering he has texted me good morning every single day for the last four years.
Pretty much ever since my parents got us cell phones for Christmas. Because, of course, they couldn’t get me one without getting Nash one. I think they were tired of me taking up the landline, but also, I think they like knowing Nash has a way of reaching me if things get bad with his dad. They would never say as much, but I’m perceptive enough to read between the lines.
I blow out a soft sigh of relief when I take the trail to the left and find him sitting on a big rock formation that overlooks the lake below, his back to me.
“Nash.”
His head turns just slightly enough to acknowledge my presence without actually looking at me. I know immediately that I was right... Something is wrong.
Nash always greets me with enthusiasm, like he’s been holding his breath since we last parted and he can finally breathe again. I both love and hate it. I love that I mean so much and that he relies on me so heavily. But I also hate that he has to. I hate that his home life is so bad that being with me is the only thing that brings him peace. I want to be his whole world, but not because he has nothing else.
“You okay?” I hesitantly approach, climbing up to take a seat next to him.
We’ve been coming to this spot since we were young. Nash came across it one day when we were playing in the woods not far from his father’s house. It’s been our spot ever since. Where we come when we need to escape, or when we just want to be alone, away from the chaos of life. And it’s where I always find him when he drops off the face of the earth, which happens more than I’d like to admit.
“Define okay.” He lifts a flask to his lips, taking a long pull.
“Well, it’s ten in the morning and you’re drinking, so I’m going to say no.” I reach out, taking the flask from his hand. I take a small sip, grimacing at the disgusting taste. “What is this?”
“Some cheap-ass vodka I found under the sink.” He takes the flask back when I extend it to him, careful not to look at me.
“Tastes like rubbing alcohol.” I slide my tongue across the roof of my mouth a few times, trying to get rid of the taste that lingers behind.
“Pretty much is,” he grunts, taking another swig.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Nope.” His eyes remain on the water below.
“Look at me.”
“Nope.” He pops his lips.
“Nash.” I reach out, my fingers sliding across his chin as I urge him to look at me. “Please.”
He resists for another second before finally conceding. He’s never been good at telling me no. But it isn’t until I get my first real look at him that I realize why he didn’t want to look at me.
His eyebrow is split, barely scabbed at this point, with small droplets of blood still forming on the surface. I’m fairly certain it needs stitches, though Nash will never agree to see a doctor, so I don’t bother saying so.
The eye below is black. There’s some pretty bad bruising along the same side of his face, and there are still traces of blood beneath his nose, which tells me at some point it had been bleeding.
My heart cracks open inside of my chest.
“Tell me what happened,” I say instead of the slew of curses that filter through my mind.
I’ve never been a vengeful person, but if there is one person I do wish vengeance on, it’s Nash’s father, Terry. He is the worst sort of person. The kind of man who finds it acceptable to beat the shit out of his own child whenever he gets the itch to do so.
“What always happens. Someone set him off at the bar, and he brought it home to me. I was sitting at the table eating cereal when he came in. He didn’t say a fucking word to me. Just walked up to me, grabbed the half-full bowl, and threw it in my face. I think it’s pretty apparent what happened from there.” He gestures to his face, a humorless smile tugging at his lips.
“We have to report him, Nash. It keeps getting worse. He’s not going to stop until he’s killed you. You know it as well as I do.”
“I’m not going to end up in some foster home with people I don’t know. I’d rather my father beat the shit out of me than have some fucking pervert that’s being paid to care for me get his rocks off by touching my nuts. No, thanks.”
My parents called children services on Nash’s father when he was ten after he came over to my house with a busted nose. His father had smashed his face into a table. Within a couple of days, he was taken out of his father’s care and was placed in a home with a man who tried to molest him his very first night there. Nash was never going to just let someone do that to him, so of course he fought back. He ended up running away two days later. After that, he got placed with another family, and even though they never did anything to him, he was so convinced that eventually they would, that when he had the opportunity to go back to his father’s, he took it, swearing he would never go back into foster care again.
So for two years, when the social worker would come to check on him, he would lie and say that everything was good, that his father was staying sober, and that he was happy. Eventually, they stopped coming out to check on him.
He made me swear never to tell my parents about anything that happened between him and his father ever again. They still know, I know they do, but I don’t say anything, and neither do they. Believe me, I want to. I want that piece of crap to get locked up like he deserves, but I can’t betray Nash’s trust like that. Not when I’m the only person he can count on.
“Why do you always do that? You know that most foster homes aren’t like that. Just because there are a few bad seeds doesn’t make them all bad. Some people just really want to help. Why can’t you let them?”
“The devil you know.” He shrugs one shoulder, taking another long pull from the flask.
“Nash...”
“I’ve got two years left, P. I’ve lasted a fuck lot longer than that already. Two years is nothing. Just let me do this my way.”
“Okay,” I concede, knowing it will do me no good to push. We’ve had this conversation dozens of times, and it always ends the same. “How about a distraction then?” I push to my knees before slinging a leg over him, straddling his lap.
“A distraction, huh?” His hands slide up the back of my shirt, cool against my bare skin. “What did you have in mind?” He looks up, a hint of a smile on his lips.
“I think you can use your imagination.” My fingers slide through the back of his hair, angling his face with mine.
“And this, P, is why I love you so goddamned much.”
“And don’t you forget it,” I whisper, softly pressing my mouth to his.
WALKING TO THE ROCKS feels like the worst case of déjà vu I’ve ever experienced. Memories hit me one after the other. The countless times I made this walk blurring together into a compilation of a life that feels so long ago and yet so close I could almost swear no time has passed at all.
This is where Nash and I played as kids. The woods. The trees. The rocks. They all hold so many fragments of our past. The day Nash told me he liked me more than just a friend happened here. Our first kiss, I think as I pass the very tree Nash pressed me against as he kissed me for the first time. I can still feel the way the bark scratched against my back as if etching the memory into my very skin. Nash carved our initials into the tree that same day so that we’d never forget... Like I ever would.
The first time we... I don’t finish the thought as I reach the clearing in the trees and look down at the water below. It was on that very shore that I shared my body with him for the first time. If I close my eyes hard enough, I can almost go back there, to that night. The sound of the water as it lapped at our feet, the chirp of the crickets, the cool breeze that whipped through my hair as Nash removed my shirt. I was so scared I was shaking, and yet I had never been so sure about anything in my entire life.
“You came.”
I jump at the sound of Nash’s voice, so enveloped by the past, I had nearly forgotten about the very reason I find myself here today.
I look up to find him already up on the rock, the one we dubbed Pash Pebble when we were like eleven because P and Nash put together and the fact that it’s a rock... Though I guess I don’t really need to explain the name.
It’s so strange seeing him there, the way I have so many times before. He looks so much different now, older and more mature, and yet still Nash. And when he looks at me with those stark blue eyes of his, a small part of me wants to run to him. To throw myself into his arms and beg him to erase the past four years and never leave me again.
I quickly shove that part down as deeply as I can get it. Because no matter how much I wish we could go back to being those two crazy teenagers who were so madly in love we were consumed by it, we can’t. Those people don’t even exist anymore.
“I said I would.” I cross my arms in front of my chest, rooting myself to this spot rather than climbing up on the rock with him the way I always used to do. “Now talk.”
“Not until you come up here.”
“No,” I say flatly.
“Come on, P—aisley.” He quickly adds the rest of my name. “If we’re going to talk, I need you to be open to hearing me.”
“I am. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I don’t need you to listen. I need you to actually hear what I’m going to say. I can’t do that if you’re standing down there acting like you think you might get literal cooties if you come within a few feet of me.”
“Won’t I? I don’t know where you’ve been all these years. For all I know, you’re riddled with cooties. Or maybe even something worse than cooties.” I internally cringe at how childish I sound.
“I’m not telling you anything until you get up here. And trust me, you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.” He doesn’t seem the least bit riled by my insult, which only makes me want to try harder.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” I snip.
“If you doubted it so much, you wouldn’t even be standing here. Now stop being so stubborn and come up.” He pats the spot next to him.
I hesitate, not sure I should. Hell, I’m not sure I should be here at all, and yet, here I am. I talked myself in and out of this a hundred times on the way over, but I made it here just the same. Maybe that’s because, deep down, I know I need to hear what he has to say. And not because of what he said about Felix, but for myself. I need to find a way to put Nash Ketter behind me. I’m hoping this is the path to doing just that.
Closure... It once seemed so unattainable, but now, I don’t know. Maybe I really can find some semblance of peace in all of this. It might be wishful thinking, but I owe it to myself, and to Felix, to try.
“Fine,” I finally concede, climbing up onto the rock before taking a seat next to him, albeit not nearly as close as I once would have, pulling my legs up almost as a way of shielding myself. “Now talk.”
“You’re just as bossy as I remember.” He smiles at me, the sight is something I was so sure I’d never see again. I won’t lie; just being near him, I can already feel a slight crack in my carefully placed armor. The sooner we get this over with, the better.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Pretend like you still know me. I can promise you, you don’t.”
“Fair enough.” He doesn’t try to argue otherwise, probably figuring he shouldn’t press his luck. “I need to start this by saying that I’ve never stopped loving you.”
“Nash...” I croak, all the air leaving my lungs in an instant like someone has just pierced me with a pin and deflated me.
“I know it doesn’t change anything. Just let me say this, okay?” He waits for my nod before continuing. “I’ve never stopped loving you. Not for a single second. I meant what I said earlier; not a day went by when I didn’t feel the loss of you everywhere. I was so convinced that doing right by you was the most important thing, that I didn’t stop to think about how badly my leaving would hurt you. I mean, I knew it would hurt you. I just never imagined... What Iris told me... How bad it got for you...” He trails off. “I can’t apologize enough. But had I stayed, I promise you, I would have hurt you far worse.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.” I force the words past my too-dry throat.
“When you learn the truth, I think you’ll see that while maybe my methods weren’t the best, I truly was just looking out for you.”
“By abandoning me?”
“By sparing you.” His expression grows somber. “There were things about me I had kept hidden from you. Things I was so ashamed by, I couldn’t admit them out loud to anyone.”
“Not even me?”
“Especially not you. Because your opinion of me meant the most.”
“Just say it, Nash. Whatever it is, just say it. The damage has already been done. You’ve got nothing to lose now.”
“If only that were true...” He falls silent for a brief moment, like he’s mentally preparing himself for what he will say next. “I’m an addict, P.”
“What do you mean you’re an addict?” I don’t even touch on the name thing. At this point, there are bigger things at play than what he calls me.
“You know I drank a lot. More than any teenager should. But what you don’t know is it wasn’t just alcohol. I mean, it was at first, but eventually, not even that was enough. I started buying pills off Pete and Derek. When I could no longer afford the pills, they offered me a more affordable option.” He glances out at the water like he can’t bear to look at me anymore. “I started using heroin midway through senior year. At first, it was just to take the edge off, but eventually, I felt consumed by it.”
“If that’s true, how did I not know?” My question brings his gaze back to me.
“I think deep down you did. You knew something was going on with me, something was different. But you, P, you always saw the best in me, and I think you just couldn’t let yourself believe that I would do something like that.”
“Your dad... Things got really bad. You said you had it under control. But you weren’t talking about your dad when you said that, were you?” Small pieces start to fall into place.
He shakes his head slowly.
“Okay, so you started using drugs. That doesn’t explain why you left. Why you didn’t just tell me the truth. I could have helped you.”
“That’s the thing, P. You couldn’t have helped me. No one could. Not until I was ready to help myself. And I was determined there was no way in hell I was going to drag you down with me.”
“Where have you been the last four years?” I finally ask the question I should have asked the second I arrived.
“In Tennessee.”
“Why Tennessee?”
“It wasn’t Georgia. I had to put enough separation between us that I couldn’t easily get back to you if I had a moment of weakness. So I found a free rehab program in Knoxville, and that’s where I went the morning I left. I took a bus straight to Knoxville and was checked into rehab before the day was over.”
I try to keep my reeling mind focused on one thing at a time, but I have so many questions they overwhelm me.
“That doesn’t explain why you were gone for so long,” I say after a long beat. “You didn’t even come home for your own father’s funeral.”
“Why would I? He’s the piece of shit who got me into this mess. I’m glad he’s gone.”
I know he’s angry, but I don’t think he truly means that. Or maybe he does. I really couldn’t say anymore.
“Besides, I said I checked myself into rehab, not that I stayed there.”
“You left?”
“Several times. I’d go back, swearing to myself that this would be the time it would stick, only to wake up in a panic and run to the first fix I could find.”
“But you’re clean now?”
He nods. “For a year now. I woke up one day and realized that the reason I kept failing over and over again was because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I wanted to get clean for you, but I needed to want it for myself first. It took me way too long to realize that, but once I did, it changed things for me. I finished an entire stint in rehab for the first time. I came out, and all I wanted to do was get back to you, but I knew doing that would be a mistake. I still had a lot of work ahead of me, and I had to be sure that it would stick. I hurt you once. I didn’t want to come home only to hurt you again.”
“I don’t... I don’t know what to say.” I stare at him for a moment, tracing the contours of his face with my eyes. His full lips. His short beard—if that’s what you want to call it—it honestly looks more like he just hasn’t shaved in a month than it does an actual beard, though I can’t deny that it looks really good on him. His eyes, the way the blue stands out against his tanned skin. His hair, which falls haphazardly across his forehead in a way that makes me desperate to reach out and gently push it back away from his face.
I quickly refocus, not willing to allow myself to go there.
“You don’t look like an addict,” I finally state after too long. “Your skin, your teeth, nothing about you looks like a drug user.”
“Because you know so many?” His mouth quirks up on one side.
“Shut up.” I have to resist the urge to shove his shoulder like I would have done back when we were still us . “I’m serious. How do you still look so... good?” I hesitate to say.
“I didn’t when I was in the thick of it all. In fact, I was basically skin and bones. You probably wouldn’t have even recognized me. My eyes were sunken in, my skin was pale. I can’t even look at pictures of myself from rehab because it’s like looking at a different person entirely. It took me a good bit to start to look and feel like myself again.”
“And Iris?”
“What about Iris?”
“You two seemed awfully chummy. I assume Felix wasn’t the only one who knew?” I try to keep the hurt from my voice.
“Actually, yes, but not because I told her. And I didn’t even know she knew until two days ago when she stopped by my father’s house to check on me.”
“You’re staying at your father’s house?”
“Clearing it out to sell it would be the better way to put it.”
“I see... So Iris knew, but you didn’t know she knew. How is that possible?”
“Her roommate overdosed.”
“I know.”
“She ended up in the same rehab as me.”
“Because she also lived in Tennessee,” I say, feeling stupid that it just now dawned on me that the two were living in the same area.
“She saw me one day when she was visiting her roommate. She didn’t speak to me. I didn’t even know she was there.”
“And yet, not even she told me the truth,” I say more to myself than to Nash. I know Iris and I grew apart after Nash left, but I never realized we were so strained that she wouldn’t call me the instant she found out where Nash was.
“She said she didn’t want to be the reason I failed.”
“Easy to make that decision when you don’t wake up every day wishing you were dead, but sure,” I sneer bitterly.
“P...”
“You said you checked up on me. Why?” I redirect the conversation.
“What do you mean, why? Because I was insanely in love with you.” He tosses his hands up. “Hell, I still am.”
“Don’t.” I shake my head.
“Don’t what, tell you the truth?”
“Just don’t,” I say again, my throat growing tight. “Why call Felix? He and I were never really close. Why not call my parents?”
“Because I was too afraid to. I figured they probably hated me for what I did, and I couldn’t face them. Not then—hell, not even now.”
“So much for knocking on the door to see what they’d do.” I snort.
“You know I’ve always talked a big game.” He chuckles softly, but there’s no humor to the sound.
“Tell me the rest. You called Felix to check on me...”
“I did. He was the only person I didn’t fear telling the truth to. I needed him. Not just for the connection he gave me to you, but because he was my best friend, and I knew I could count on him. Or at least, I thought I could.”
“He never gave any indication that he and I were hanging out?”
“Never. Hell, the last time we spoke, he acted like you weren’t in his life at all. Said you were dating some new guy and he hadn’t seen you around much over the last year.”
The news of this cuts deeper than I would ever let on to Nash.
“And before that?”
“He didn’t give me much. He’d say he saw you out and you two chatted for a bit, or that you found yourselves at the same social gathering and spent a little time catching up. He basically led on like you weren’t really around each other much. When I’d asked him how you seemed when he saw you, he’d always say you were good. Honestly, he made it out like you didn’t miss me at all. Like me leaving had almost zero effect on you, and you just moved on with your life.”
My brain is slow to digest everything he’s telling me. And while I’m hurt by Felix and the secrets he kept, I also know there are two sides to every story, and I won’t jump to any conclusions until I’ve had a chance to speak to Felix directly. I owe him that much.
“I kind of understand why he didn’t tell me about your calls,” I say after a long moment. “Maybe in his own way he thought he was protecting me. But I don’t understand why he would lie to you about me .”
“Yes, you do.” He gives me a look that I know all too well. Like he can see right through me, can see the things that maybe not even I have allowed myself to see.
“If you started calling him a year after you left, he and I were just friends then. Hell, he was basically my only friend. When you left, I was desperate for any kind of connection to you. Besides me, you were always closest to Felix. So I clung to him like a lifeline. At first, it was because I needed someone who understood my pain. He was hurting too, after all. Then he became more than just your best friend, he became mine . He was the only person who was truly there for me. He held me when I cried. Spent hours on the phone with me, listening to me rant, talking me down when I started spiraling. I meant what I said. I don’t know if I’d be here today without him, at least not this version of myself. He quite literally brought me back to life when I was convinced I had nothing left to live for.”
“Paisley, I—”
“No, you need to hear this. You need to understand. You leaving, it killed me, Nash. Maybe not in the physical sense, but I died the day you left. The girl you loved, she’s not here anymore. You broke me into a million pieces, and Felix spent two solid years putting me back together. He never tried to make a move on me; he never pushed for more. It was more than two years after you left before anything happened between us, and I was the one who initiated it, not him. I woke one day and just realized that somewhere along the way, I had fallen in love with him.”
“I don’t need to hear the details.” His brow furrows.
“You do. You need to understand that you and I are in the past. Felix is my future. And you need to find a way to make peace with that because it isn’t going to change.” I want to believe my words. I want to believe them so desperately that I almost even convince myself they’re true because they have to be true.
“You can’t honestly say that you love him the way you loved me.”
“I don’t. My love for Felix is different, that’s true, but that doesn’t make it any less real.”
“He lied to you. He knew the truth about me. He could have told you at any time, but he didn’t.”
“Did you ask him not to tell me?” I finally think to ask.
“Well, yeah, but—”
I stop him before he can say anything else.
“You asked him not to tell me, and he didn’t. So basically, he did exactly what you wanted.”
“I mean, yes, but no. I didn’t want you to know because I worried you’d come after me, and I didn’t want you to see me like that. That doesn’t mean he had my permission to move in on my girl...”
Again, I cut in.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you. It kills me that you were suffering so badly and you didn’t feel like you could share your pain with me. But you made your choice four years ago and you did so without ever asking me what I wanted. I was your girl, yes. But I’m not anymore. Felix didn’t need your permission, and neither did I. You can’t lay claim to something you willingly tossed aside.”
“I didn’t toss you aside. I was trying to protect you!” He tries and fails to mask his frustration.
“You thought this would be so much easier than it is, didn’t you? That you would just come strolling back into town and I would jump into your arms like the last four years never existed.”
“Not exactly.”
“But you did think you could get me back.”
“P, what you and I share—”
“Shared,” I quickly correct.
“What we still share,” he continues. “It doesn’t come along every day. You can’t just replace me.”
“I never replaced you, Nash. I let you go and made room in my heart for a man deserving of my love.”
“You give him too much credit. Felix lied to both of us. He manipulated you. He wasn’t protecting either of us; he was protecting himself. He knew that if you knew the truth, he’d never be able to have you for himself. And he knew that if I had any indication that you two were getting close, I would have been on the first bus back to Madison.”
“And where would that have left us? It took you a year to call him. A freaking year to call your best friend. A lot happened in that year, Nash. Even if Felix had told you the truth when our friendship had started to become something more, and you had returned, I wouldn’t have taken you back. Not after the way you left. You broke my trust. You broke my heart. There’s no coming back from that.”
Every word tastes bitter on my tongue, the lies stinging the back of my throat like venom. Had he come back, I would have run into his arms and begged him to never leave again. I would have been willing to forgive and forget it all if it meant things could go back to the way they were. But I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that because then he’ll think there’s still a chance. And there isn’t. There can’t be. Not anymore.
“So you’re just going to ignore the fact that he lied and manipulated you?”
“I will talk to Felix. But it’s not really any of your business, is it?”
“Not my business!” Irritation peppers his words. “You are my girl, P. You always have been. I won’t let him have you.”
“Would you listen to yourself. I am not your girl. You threw me away, remember?” I push to a stand. “You don’t get to decide who can or cannot have me. I am not an object you own!”
“P!” Nash is on his feet in an instant, following me off the rock. “I’m sorry, okay. Please don’t leave.”
I whip around so fast, I damn near lose my footing.
“You asked me to hear you out, and I did. Thank you for telling me your truth. But it doesn’t change what you did. It doesn’t justify how badly you hurt me, not when you could’ve just told me that you were suffering. You were my entire world, Nash. Every pore in my body ached for you when you were gone.” Tears prick the backs of my eyes as my tightly held composure starts to slip. “I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. For weeks, all I did was cry. And then, one day, the tears stopped. And then, eventually, the pain became bearable. Little by little, I found my way again, and I won’t let you or your bruised ego take that away from me. Not again. I survived you once, Nash Ketter. I wouldn’t survive you a second time.” With that, I spin, leaving the woods the same way I entered.