No Saint (Wild Men 6)

They all think that. But they’re wrong. And then they’ll have to learn how to live on a broken heart.

Like I have been doing, each beat cracked and bleeding. I was stupid. My teenage heart was weak, and I fell for a pair of blue, cruel eyes, a cruel smile, a cruel soul.

Never again.

***

He’s still there when new customers walk into the diner and I let Dena take their order, hiding and hating myself for it. By the time I talk myself into going out there to do my job and ignore him, he’s already left.

Coffee pot in my hand, heart still thumping, I stare at the seat by the window where he’d sat, still seeing the spikes of his ash-blond hair, the wide set of his shoulders, the powerful arms, the tattoos.

Dena isn’t speaking to me. Nice start at work, huh? But no way am I taking back the things I said—about Ross, and about the things she said.

About her choices. It’s all about her choices, really. About whether or not she believes I’m overreacting when I say Ross bullied me. About whether it’s okay to have a one-night stand with him—or many night stands? No idea—because he’s not, no matter if he’s an asshole.

I’ve made my choice: I’m steering clear of him. Nothing to say to him, not if I don’t want to make a scene, and I don’t. Not doing that for him. Or for Dena.

No, I’m doing it for me. I don’t want to drag the past into the present. Not if I want to heal. What I need is not to be around Ross and his bully friends, and I’ll be fine.

Josh and Dad are waiting for me at home. They decided we’d have a movie night with spicy pepperoni pizza and lemonade. It’s warm, and we can put the TV on the porch. I missed that kind of thing. We used to do it a lot, before.

Before I ran, before I thought my life was over before it even started.

Changing back into my own clothes, folding the uniform and placing it in my backpack to take home with me, I wave Dena goodbye—she ignores me—and head out. I’m walking home. Destiny is a tiny place. One bus rolls through its main street a few times a day, and there are no cabs. No hotel, no movie theater, no fancy restaurants and coffee shops.

I used to find that normal. Now it’s jarring. Weird. Quaint.

Still I find myself smiling as I pass outside the ice cream shop where Josh and I always went after school. The ownership changed after the lady who had it turned out to be an accomplice of a disturbed guy who abducted Matt Hansen’s kids and girlfriend. The new owner, Jake, is a nice old guy and I check to see if he’s in on my way past.

He isn’t. And then I remember how often I skipped ice cream, after I was bullied at school, called all those names...

Huffing out a shaky breath, tucking my hair behind my ears and smoothing my T-shirt over my not-so-flat belly, I hurry away.

God, why won’t the memories leave me alone?

***

I’m settling in fine at work, and in the town. Ross doesn’t come back to the diner in the next days, and that’s a relief, though Dena comments that it’s unusual and that she hopes he’s okay.

Okay? Who cares? Screw him. I’m just glad to be living my life without his shadow looming over me.

I find ways to distract myself. I make

vague plans for the future, trying to decide what to study, what sort of job I want. What sort of life.

And I watch people.

Like this one...

“Who’s that?” I ask Dena one evening, in between bouts of frantic shuttling back and forth dishes and drinks to a couple of big families.

“Who?”

“The guy in the corner.”

“I dunno... oh wait, I think that’s Jenner. Jenner Hawkins, you know him from school. Cleaned up nicely, didn’t he?”

“Maybe. Can’t remember him much, to be honest.” I squint at him. He does look kinda cute in the dim light of the diner. He’s blond. Another blond.