3. Nick
THREE
NICK
The firelight flickers in the darkness, giving everything in its reach an orange glow and covering everything and everyone farther away in a blanket of darkness.
I stand, leaning my back against a tree, the bark biting into my skin through my shirt.
Music blares from the speaker wedged in the trunk of someone’s car.
Laughter and shouts rise and fall with the music.
Some people dance, others stand around in loose circles, talking, laughing, drinking, like they’re trying to relive the summer before it’s gone for good.
The air smells faintly of weed and wood smoke.
I didn’t plan to come here tonight.
But then I did anyway.
I hate it here, but that’s neither here nor there, since I indiscriminately hate everything these days.
Speaking of.
There he is.
Blue.
He’s standing a bit farther away from the fire.
He’s smiling at something that girl who’s always around the house with Dia—Brianna?
Beatrice? Brenna?—says. Blue’s head is tipped back, throat exposed as he laughs.
Easy and relaxed, like the ground hasn’t shifted an inch beneath his feet.
Like nothing happened when my whole existence was upended so completely.
Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that life keeps moving like always for everybody else.
I shouldn’t watch him.
But I do.
I watch the way the firelight catches his eyes. I watch the curve of his mouth when he smiles. Watch the way people lean toward him without him realizing he pulls them in.
I hate that I know so much about him. That I’ve dedicated all this time to noticing.
I hate that I recognize the rhythm of his footsteps in the hallway.
I hate the way he hovers like he wants to say something but never does.
I hate that I know he always knocks twice on my door before coming in, like he’s asking permission to enter his own home.
His home.
My home.
The word still sits wrong in my mouth even after all this time. Not my home. Just a room I occupy in someone else’s house.
I hate it.
The bass pulses through the ground and up my spine. Someone whoops and a bottle shatters near the edge of the clearing. Sparks burst upward, bright and brief.
Blue doesn’t see me. Or maybe he does and chooses to pretend not to.
I hate that I want him to look at me.
I drag my hand down my face.
This is exactly why I didn’t want to come here tonight.
Because he’s here. Because he always is.
Because no matter how many times I vow to keep my distance, I still end up orbiting him.
There’s an overflowing amount of loathing inside me.
The level keeps rising until I feel like I’m drowning in it, and I need somewhere for this hate to go. I need to aim it at something. Someone.
It’s like meditating. Only instead of peace and mindfulness, I channel deep resentment. Revel in it. Drink it in. Enjoy it. Swim in it.
He turns his head.
Our eyes meet across the flames.
His expression shifts. The smile melts from his face, slowly replaced by a furrowed brow the longer he looks at me.
I take a drink from the bottle of beer I’ve been nursing, still holding his gaze. His eyes drift lower. It’s just a flash before he looks away.
No matter how hard he tries to pretend I don’t get to him, he never succeeds. He’s shit at hiding that I make him nervous, and there’s a grim satisfaction in it. It’s like my own personal revenge for that first meeting that took me so off guard.
My pulse kicks the slightest bit. It’s an unfortunate byproduct of seeing him.
Like the uncontrollable moments every now and then when the unbidden thoughts of his green eyes get past my guard.
The faint dimple in his left cheek when he laughs.
The way his hair curls after he comes back from his trips out in the bay.
My pulse gives another unwelcome kick.
I ignore it.
There’s no room in my life for emerald eyes and pretty boys.