Fuck. I draw her scent into my lungs, and nod. “Okay.”
It feels like a fair deal.
Well, until she pulls back, her eyes wide. “For real? That’s great!”
Is it?
Because now I remember that I’m not supposed to hold her like that, wish for her lips, wish for more.
But we stay like that a while longer, because I’m weak, and I want to keep her.
No matter how much harder it will be to let her go later.
Chapter Eleven
Kash
Yeah, I know, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. Not only am I still here, in this apartment, in this neighborhood, when I’d decided it was high time I left, but I go and kiss a girl, and then I’m setting up the scene for her two boyfriends to make up and get all cozy again.
What the fuck, right?
And at a party. Last place I wanna be. But I promised Sydney to help, and besides… who knows? I could get lucky and score what I need there. Bound to, with all those crazy high school students looking for release.
It’s a plan, and that’s how I find myself on my first night off sitting in my room as the evening falls, wondering how crazy I must be to be doing this.
Batshit.
My journal is open in front of me, but I haven’t written a word in it.
I kissed a girl and who gives a shit? Nobody, that’s who. And I shouldn’t, either.
Only that kiss twisted up a key inside me, and parts of me are changing. Moving. I don’t know what’s happening to me, only that I’m not okay.
Haven’t been in a long time now, but I’ve ignored it, mostly, burying myself in work and living day to day, self-medicating and writing down my past.
Not enough. Not anymore.
This isn’t good. I’ve managed to keep going by locking up my broken parts so deep inside of me I can’t feel them, but now they’re shifting like broken glass, cutting me up inside.
Dear Journal.
Dear Fucking Journal.
This sucks ass. This world. My every day. Having to run when I wanna stay. Kissing Sydney when she wants two other guys. Everything I feel, everything I experience, is borrowed, stolen. Not really mine.
Including my life.
Someone is banging on the door, and I snap my journal closed. Grabbing my denim jacket and my tobacco pouch, I drag my feet up to the door and open it in Nate’s face.
He nods at me, one hand braced on the doorframe. “Hey, man. About that party…”
“I’m ready to go.” I clap him on the shoulder and push past him.
About time. I was starting to get claustrophobic in there with my dark thoughts.
“Not sure I can go after all,” Nate says, following me through the living room. No sign of his dad, thank God.
“Your dad won’t let you?”