Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Wolf
Back in Pikestown, Dog’s paws dug into my thigh when I drove into the Kanga Mart parking lot.
I’d spent the last hour listening to Mrs. Seaton lecture me on how she’d seen me look at Jade in Wal-E-Mart.
How I’d kept glancing back at her in the truck when I dropped Dog off yesterday.
I hated how people with more life experience had no problem pointing out what I already knew but wanted to deny.
I pulled into a spot, cracked the window, and then placed him in the passenger seat. “Stay there.”
Dog huffed when I reached for the door. “Don’t dig up the seat, and I’ll get you Doritos.” Promising Doritos to a dog if he behaved felt oddly familiar to how I handled Hendrix.
I went straight to the back of the store, scanning the selection of chips.
When the bell over the door dinged, I glanced over the shelves.
A habit born of years of shoplifting and watching for cops.
A cop would have been a more welcoming sight than Blocked-My-Number Brent strolling in, the black eye I’d given him now a nasty yellowish-green.
He either didn’t notice me on his way to the restrooms, or he’d chosen to ignore me.
I grabbed a bag of Original Doritos, trying to tamp down the anger rising in my chest like a provoked cobra, fangs out and hissing. That motherfucker was the reason for half the emotional bullshit I’d endured the past two years, not to mention my suspension.
The bag crinkled in my hand when I imagined the smug-ass expression that must have crossed his stupid face when he’d blocked my number. When he’d kept me out of the way and stolen my girl. Of course he had to manipulate Jade into dating his sorry ass.
He’d destroyed not one but two of my dreams.
I told myself he wasn’t worth it. To be the bigger person, pay for the damn chips, and leave the store, but the thought of him snaking his way into Jade’s bed had me frozen in rage.
Then I thought about him possibly having slashed her tires.
I told myself that was the reason I chucked the chips onto the shelf and headed to the back of the store.
That he’d crossed a line by fucking with her, but the truth was, he’d crossed my line a long time ago.
I rounded the coolers, snatching open the restroom door.
Brent stood at the urinal, dick in hand.
He didn’t glance over his shoulder until the lock clicked, then his face washed white.
“I just…” He crammed his dick back into his jeans.
When he went to move around me, I snatched him by the shirt and slammed him against the cinderblock wall hard enough to force a grunt from his lips.
“You slashed her fucking tires on Friday night?”
“What? No.” He shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since…since Tuesday.”
I used more of my weight to press him to the wall, and he winced.
“I’m serious. I wouldn’t do that. I swear.”
“You think I’m going to believe your bullshit?” My grip tightened.
He clawed at my hand, panic crawling over his face like a little bitch. “I-I love her.” Those words were akin to acid burning through my veins. “I wouldn’t?—”
“Shut the fuck up!”
He paled a little more.
“You blocked my number. You cheated on her.” God, I wanted to grab the little shit by his throat and choke him out. “Why the fuck should I believe you?”
“I went to my mom’s for the weekend. I can show you receipts. Whatever will prove it to you. Just…” He struggled against my hold. “Don’t hit me.”
But my grip didn’t loosen. If anything, it tightened. Frustration and anger pushed me harder by the second.
“I care about her. I would never do anything to hurt Jade. Okay?”
“Oh, you care about her?” I snorted back an angry laugh. “You have the audacity to tell me that you care about her?” My hand had moved to his throat, squeezing a little too tightly. “You blocked my number to get her. Pretended to be her friend. Took advantage.”
“I didn’t do it so she’d date me.” Gasping, he clawed at my hand, attempting to pry it loose. “I was just trying to help her. With her exams, and her dad losing his job—” The words spewed out like vomit. “She was a mess. Then you guys broke up, and she cried all the time, and…”
His blabbering faded to the background, none of his words audible over my own thoughts.
Her dad had lost his job when we were still together?
Before fuckface had blocked my number? I’d thought we told each other everything back then, but no.
She’d told Brent—her “friend”—and not me.
Hurt wormed its way deep inside me. Jade must have been checked out months before she wanted that break.
And this little shit was there to be her white-fucking-knight.
My jaw tensed, and I gave him one last shove, bringing my face inches from his.
“Leave her the fuck alone. You see her on campus, your ass better turn the other way. She walks into a bar you’re in, you leave. Lose her number. Forget she exists, or I’ll fucking kill you. Understood?”
After he gave a frantic nod, I dropped him onto the grimy restroom floor and left. Pissed as hell, without the damn Doritos.
The sun had long ago dropped below the tops of the pine trees. The unbearable heat had shifted into a close-knit humidity that had condensation rolling from the bottle of whiskey clutched in my hand. The back door creaked open, and Dog lazily sat up in the lawn chair beside me.
“Hey, you coming?” Bellamy’s voice drifted over the lawn, but I didn’t bother looking at him.
“Nah. Don’t feel like it.”
Footfalls crossed the grass seconds before Bell stopped in front of me. “You okay, man?”
Not even fucking close. “Yeah. Fine.”
He glanced at the bottle in my hand. “You only drink whiskey when shit’s fucked up.”
I lifted the drink to my mouth and took a hearty swig. “I said I’m fine.”
“I know it was shit for you this weekend, but the suspension is up after next week.”
“Bell—”
“Or is this just about Jade?”
Thankfully, the door banged open again, saving me from having to answer that. Petey and Rogue rounded the side of the house.
“You guys coming or what?” Rogue asked.
“Yeah,” Bellamy said, then held out his hand. “Where are your keys?”
“What the hell do you need my keys for?”
He thumped the side of the bottle. “Just in case you decide you want to come out.”
Mumbling “bullshit” under my breath, I lifted to one side, fished my keys from my pocket, then tossed them to him. I wasn’t stupid enough to drink and drive, but if it made his mother-hen ass feel better…
I watched him join the rest of the guys before I took another sip.
Dad used to get onto me for drinking, saying it wouldn’t solve my problems. The thing he didn’t know was that I’d watched the man who had never touched a drop in his life go from downing half a pint of whiskey every night after Mom became sick, then half a liter after she died.
He’d hide it in a Thermos, topped it off with a little coffee, but I could smell the liquor on his breath and hear the bottles clank together every time he took out the trash.
He wasn’t wrong; it didn’t solve jack shit, but it sure as hell helped numb the pain.
A light breeze kicked up, stirring leaves across the yard, and I dropped my head back against the chair.
It had been hard enough that Jade left me, hard when I’d thought she cut all contact with me.
But knowing that the person I had felt closer to than anyone else hadn’t felt close enough to confide in me—but had talked to that manipulative fuckface…
That was a piece of rusted shrapnel clean through the damn heart, ripping and tearing, and I didn’t want to feel any of it, so I drank.
Halfway through the bottle, and after I’d replayed what felt like every damn minute of mine and Jade’s relationship, thunder rolled in the distance.
Dog leaped from the chair and took off for the house right before fat drops of warm rain splattered my arm.
I shoved up from the chair, staggering a little on my way to the back porch.
As soon as the door closed behind me, I went up to my room, dropped to the floor beside my bed, and yanked out the Adidas box, allowing the masochist within me to fully take hold.
I opened the box, took a swig, then pulled out one of the origami notes.
I unfolded a flower, the creases well-worn from the number of times I’d opened it, only to refold it in its intricate pattern again—something too delicate and creative for my clumsy fingers.
Each different shape had taken me ages to learn.
I had done it, I thought, in some desperate bid to keep her preserved.
I read over her words, scratched out when she was only seventeen.
Today I will take one step forward, however small. But only because you hold my hand.
It was the first affirmation she had ever given me, after I’d given her several written in basic notes.
Trying to help her through hard times, the same way my mom had tried to get through hers.
When she’d given me the flower, I’d checked out Beginners to Origami from the Dayton Public Library and taught myself the basics.
I didn’t realize it then, but I did it because I had already fallen for her and would have done any damn thing to make that girl happy.
I tossed the flower to the floor, then grabbed a butterfly, and unfolded the paper, eating up the sight of her handwriting like it was a lifeline.
Our love is stronger than any disagreement.
She’d given me that one in class after our first argument.
Next, I went for a bird.
Thank you. For loving me when I couldn’t love myself.
Then, a newer one she’d given me only two months before she asked for a break.
Whatever our souls are made of, I think yours and mine are the same.
That one cut deep. Thunder rattled the windows as that shrapnel twisted deeper and deeper, and I chugged a little more whiskey. Then I read through every damn note in the box. With each one, the whiskey convinced me they had all been lies. My heart, though? That bastard wasn’t convinced.