Still Jaded (Jaded 2)

"I'll just get coffee," I smiled so fake that Dorothy looked alarmed.

"Okay…" She frowned before she left.

"What the hell are you doing?" Corrigan flicked my wr

ist.

"Ouch." I flicked him back and then punched his arm.

"What'd you do that for?"

"What'd you do that for?"

"You're acting like a psycho. And you're eating something. None of this 'just coffee' crap."

"I'm acting crazy because she's crazy. Did you see her? She didn't even know I was here until she was almost on top of us."

"Well then she's not your stalker or she would've known right away. What's your problem? Why are you trying to intimidate her?"

"Why not?" Intimidation was fun. "She's Marcus' cousin. I'll try to scare anyone related to him."

Corrigan grew silent. That perked my interest. He studied the menu, but Corrigan never studied a menu. He always knew right away what he wanted. I slammed a hand on his and said, "Out with it. What's going on?"

He shrugged and sat back. He stuffed his hands in his hoodie front pocket. "Nothing. Why?"

"You said I was being weird, but so are you. You're usually all flirty or pissed. The only times you're just normal is when you're around me. What gives? Why are you so…not you?"

He rolled his eyes. "I don't like this place. I don't understand why you always want to come here. It gives me the creeps."

He was right. It was weird, but I came back for…I wasn't sure. "I think I feel like something's not right, something wasn't right about Marcus. Maybe this was my last connection to him, the real him before he turned crazy."

"You're right, something wasn't right with him. He was crazy," Corrigan barked out.

"No, I mean—" I gave him a dirty look. "He wasn't always crazy. He became that way because of something. It wasn't us. I mean like at his home or maybe he was picked on too much, I don't know. People aren't born crazy, right? They become crazy. I think if I can understand that, it'd help me understand why what happened did happen. You know what I mean?"

"All I know is that this place gives me the creeps. I was wrong about the waitress. She's creepy. She keeps looking over here." He hunched over the menu when Dorothy started back to us.

I leaned forward and whispered, "That's because she likes you."

"Do you know what you'd like?" Dorothy asked with a tremble in her voice.

"Man, the first time I came in here, I thought you were going to try and stab me with a fork. Now you're super nice. Are you trying to give me a complex or something?" I watched Dorothy intently. I wanted to judge her reaction to my words.

Her eyelid twitched. I caught distaste for a second before she covered it and looked at Corrigan. She kept glancing at him. Most girls with a crush would look underneath their eyelids, like they wanted to hide. The shy girls never liked a guy to know who was checking him out. The brazen girls, like Cadence, stared openly and longing. They wanted the guy to know he was wanted. This girl—she was not normal. She kept staring at Corrigan as if he wasn't a real person, like she didn't realize he could tell she was staring.

I spoke up, "Do you like Corrigan? You're staring at him like he's a tasty treat."

"Sheldon!" Corrigan hissed.

My eyes narrowed as I waited for Dorothy's reaction. She froze and grew white around the mouth. Her skin looked stretched, painfully. Then she turned on me and her eyes snapped in anger. "How dare you?"

"How dare me? I'm speaking the truth."

"I loved Marcus. I did. He wasn't normal. I know that. My entire family feels bad for what he did, but he was still my cousin. And yet, you keep coming in here. You were the one who took him away from us before we could get him help. You killed him. You baited him. We all read the police report. I saw the tape. You were in complete control and he wasn't. You could've gotten away from him, but you didn't—"

I shot to my feet. "Wanna know why?!"

There was shocked silence around us. Dorothy seemed shaken, but she didn't look away.

I hit the table with my fist. "He stalked me. He videotaped me with my boyfriend. He killed two of my friends, good people. They were people you would've been friends with. I liked them, and I found one of them dead. He left her in the park, like he threw out the trash. Then he stabbed one of my best friends in front of me. He enjoyed it. He stabbed him multiple times and he dug that knife in until—"

"Enough!" Corrigan shot to his feet. He clamped a hand on my arm. "We're leaving." Then he turned on Dorothy. "We won't be coming here again. We won't be using your catering services either. And for the record, I did nothing to your cousin. He tried to kill me because Sheldon's my family. She went after him because of me. She didn't stalk him, he stalked her. You might want to remember that."

He dragged me outside and then let go of my arm when we got to the car. As we got inside, I shook my head. My legs were trembling. "You reminded me of Bryce just now. Are you sure you're not channeling him?"

Corrigan growled. "It's because you make us do that. You made me do that. You push us so that we have to reign you in and it's annoying, Sheldon. I feel so much pressure because I have to take care of you now. You don't take care of yourself. You put that responsibility on someone else. I'm not fucking you. I'm your best friend. How did this job come to me?"

I went cold at his words.

"Sheldon." He reached for my hand.

I shrank away from his touch. "Don't touch me. Don't even think about it. You don't have to take care of me. Whatever you were worrying about in there, you don't have be a certain way. You never were before. Now what—Bryce is gone so you're trying to fill in? Don't. Please. You're right. You're not fucking me. You're supposed to be my friend. If you can't handle the job description then apparently it's too much—"

"That's not fair!" Corrigan interrupted. "I was wrong. I'm sorry. I'm not like you. I haven't wanted to deal with Marcus Donadeli. You—it's all you've been dealing with. I think that's good. You're trying to put him behind you, but I'm not like that. I try not to think about it." He glanced away. "I don't think Bryce ever wanted to deal with it either."

"Yeah. Well." I'd grown so tired in the last minute. "Maybe that's what went wrong with us."

He sighed. "I'm sorry. I was wrong—"

"You don't have to stick around. You can leave too."

His shoulders dropped and his throat jerked. He visibly swallowed. I watched how his hands clenched and then relaxed. He looked down at them, as if considering what I just said. "I'm sorry. I just—you make…I don't know how to say this."

"Say it."

"Okay." He took a breath and looked at me. I saw the appeal in his eyes. "I could hide from a lot of things before, but Bryce is gone. I mean, I don't know what I mean. It doesn't matter. I…just…I can't hide because of you. You don't hide anymore. I'm with you. I'm in the front seat right next to you because I want to be. But that also means that I can no longer hide from things because you don't. You face everything head on. Hell, any challenge you see before you and you want to squash it. I have to get used to it. It's a lot, sometimes. You're making me deal with shit that I might not have dealt with all my life…"

"What are you talking about?"

Corrigan sighed and smiled. His grin was brief and gone, but I still saw it. "Nothing. Nothing. Where else do you want breakfast?"

"I don't care. Pull over to the closest coffee place. I still want coffee."

Corrigan did as he was told.

After we went back to my place, I shot into the house, but I couldn't get farther than the kitchen. Every inch of my skin was itching to hide. In some ways, he wasn't right at all, but he was in other ways. There were times when if I saw a problem I knew I could deal with, I dealt with it. Maybe I didn't want Marcus to screw my life up? Maybe I didn't want him to have that power over me.

When my fridge opened and Corrigan pulled out a beer, I arched my eyebrows. "Really?"

He shrugged. "I already know what kind of talk we're going to have. The time seems to fit."

"What are you talking about?"

He gestured towards me with his beer. "Just, start."

So I did. He thought he knew me so well, but he d

idn't. "You're telling me that I don't hide from stuff? Do you know me? Really? Do you not know me at all? I hide from everything!—"

Corrigan got in my face. His breath tickled my chin. "You don't hide from Marcus. You face it head on. That's why you go to Sparky's. That's why you stayed in Spain, even though Bryce didn't want you there. You didn't hide from what was going on with him. You stayed there because you wanted to face it head on. You've changed, Sheldon. You've changed since—not since Marcus, but before that. Hell, this thing with Bryce would've been drawn out a few