I Never Expected You (I Never 2)

“Beside the point.” He shook his head, laughing.

I loved our ridiculous conversations. It’d been like this our whole lives. We were more like brothers than friends, or possibly even an old married couple. We loved to mess with each other. Sometimes I felt bad that my sister had to put up with both of our shenanigans.

“You need to stop dicking around, bro, and find yourself something solid. I know you’re just going there tonight for pussy.”

“You mean like what you have with my sister?”

He nodded while I snickered and rolled my eyes. That sort of love wasn’t in the cards for me.

“Nah, that’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. You guys are your own…” I searched my thoughts to come up with the right word but came up empty-handed. “Well, I don’t even know what you guys are.”

“Easy pussy eventually gets old.”

Yeah, like he knew—he’d only ever been with one girl. Gross. I cringed at that thought. This conversation had gone downhill quickly. I walked back to my room to grab my coat and heard him call out to me.

“Zach, one day, man. One day you’ll find her, and you’ll just know. She’s gonna knock you on your ass.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, Em.”

Emmett opened the front door. “I’ll see ya later, fucker. Don’t forget to wrap it up.”

I heard the door click shut as my best friend walked out the door—for the last time.

Fuck, if I’d have known that would be the last conversation I would ever have with my best friend, I would’ve talked about something more meaningful than my sex life. If I had only known, I would have forced him to stay home.

I reach for the doorknob and exhale a deep breath before closing the door with a little too much force. I’m not sure if I’ve hit the anger stage of grief yet, or if I just don’t know how exactly to express my emotions these days, but I know we’re most likely not getting the security deposit back as I pass the newly spackled hole in the drywall from where I punched the wall a few weeks back. My hand has healed physically, but the wounds I carry on the inside, I’m pretty sure will never go away.

I look down at my watch and see that I’m going to be late if I don’t hurry up and head to campus. I take one last look around, chewing on the inside of my lip, fighting back the emotion. I could easily say fuck it and skip class, but it’s the first day of classes, and I don’t want to start the semester on the wrong foot or in the professor’s bad graces.

Look at me, caring about my education. Maybe a little bit of Emmett has rubbed off on me. I place my cup on the counter before grabbing my backpack off the couch and walking out the door.

I make it to class with about five minutes to spare and grab a seat toward the back in a row that has two empty seats.

Nope, not going to do this now. Nope. Keep your shit together, Zach.

I swallow down the emotion that has been trying to break through since I made my way across campus to class. Our entire lives, if Em and I had a class together where we weren’t assigned seats, we would always sit together. I take a seat, needing to push the thoughts of my best friend not being here and all the things he won’t ever get to do away, at least for the time being.

I am focused on pulling out my textbook and binder when I hear movement to my left.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

Without even looking up to see who the male voice belongs to, I say, “Nah, it’s all yours, man.”

“Awesome, thanks.” I hear the sound of the chair moving as the person takes a seat next to me. “Hi. I’m Kyler.”

I look over at him. He extends his hand. I stare at it for a moment before doing the same.

“Hey. I’m Zach.”

Two weeks into the semester, and it’s already kicking my ass. A night out is just what I need. The party animal from last semester is on vacation, possibly permanently. I guess being at a party reverts my mind back to that night. But staying in and getting drunk by myself gets old.

Kyler Lawson, the transfer student who I met on the first day of the semester, is meeting me here at the apartment. It turns out we’re both communications majors and have most of the same classes. We hit it off pretty well and decided to meet here before heading out to the party.

I race home after my last class and a long workout in the gym and take a quick shower. After throwing on a pair of jeans and a dark gray Henley, I walk out to the living room and take a seat on the couch. I check the time and see Ky isn’t due to arrive for another fifteen minutes. I decide to check in at home by FaceTiming my sister. I dial her numbe

r and wait.

The call connects and my sister’s face appears. She’s in her bedroom, and the light is dim, but there is enough for me to be able to see her face is pale and her eyes are rimmed red, the same look she’s had for weeks now.