Ruthless Love

by Penelope Bloom

  “Not from me, dumbass. And I doubt Kennedy is going to say anything. But word gets around. Maybe one of the EMTs has a cousin or sister at Parker, or something.”

  Tristan let him go, breathing out slowly through his nose and closing his eyes. “I need to rest.”

  Logan and I shared a look. Logan gestured for me to follow him out of the room. Grudgingly, I followed, even though all I wanted to do was stay until I knew Tristan was going to be okay.

  In the lobby of the hospital, I sank down into a chair. Logan sat beside me.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I wiped my hands down my face slowly. “I don’t get him. Every time I think I’m starting to understand Tristan, it’s like…” I groaned. “I don’t know. I’m starting to think it’s not possible to actually understand him.”

  Logan grinned. “I’ve known Tristan since Pee Wee football. Welcome to the club.”

  “Why would he do this? I don’t get it.”

  “He was smoking weed before we were out of middle school. The only thing that stopped him was when his coaches found out and gave him an ultimatum. Now he gets tested every few months to make sure he’s staying clean. I mean, I thought he was over it all. But maybe he went back to it?”

  “They don’t pump your stomach for weed,” I said.

  “I know. But some guys get high for fun. They get drunk for fun, too. Tristan always seemed like he was using it to hide from something. Maybe whatever he took was doing that for him.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve been telling myself it’s okay to make mistakes. I spent so long dreaming about what it’d be like to do all this. To walk, to be a normal high school kid. To date. To do stupid stuff. But I don’t want to screw this up. Not him.”

  “Then keep trying,” Logan said. “He’ll keep pushing you away and then pulling you in. If you really want this to work, know those pushes are coming, and don’t fight them. Be there for him when he’s ready to let you back in.”

  “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.” Logan chuckled. “I have a little sister, you know. So this isn’t my first time giving boyfriend advice.”

  I smirked. “I can tell.”

  32

  Tristan

  Parties at my house weren’t often planned. Usually, someone would decide to come over and bring a couple beers. They’d tell someone about it, who would also decide to show up with something to drink. By the end of the school day, nearly a hundred people would have plans to be at my place. Personally, I never gave a shit. If people wanted to deliver booze to me and girls, who was I to stop them.

  But this time was different. I wanted the party.

  I’m guessing the same anonymous tipper that had let paramedics know to come get me Tuesday night was the one who had tipped off coach. He asked me point blank if I’d taken anything, and I lied to his face. It bought me a day at best, but I knew the test was coming sooner or later. If I was lucky, I’d be able to play again senior year. If I wasn’t, I’d be looking at permanent removal from the team and maybe an expulsion.

  I could barely look Kennedy in the face when she’d come to the hospital. I had done my best on Thursday to play it cool and not let my anger show, but she had sensed something was up.

  The truth was I knew exactly who I had to blame for all of this. It was her fucking mom. I hadn’t taken shit myself. All I did was drink that tea. Her mom wanted me out of Kennedy’s life, and she was apparently psychotic enough to drug me and get me kicked off the team to send a message.

  If she was willing to go that far, I had a sneaking suspicion she was capable of worse.

  My first instinct had been to tell Kennedy everything. But it was her mom. What would I be doing to her if I destroyed her relationship with her last remaining parent?

  She’d be living my nightmare, then. Maybe worse.

  Whether her mom had said it or not, I knew one thing: if I kept pushing back, Kennedy would get caught in the crossfire. So all I could do was seethe. To think about what to do next and come up with no fucking suitable answer.

  And then there was the realtor and my impending homelessness.

  Every time I thought about the look on that realtor’s face, it made me want to invite ten more people. She had looked so disgusted to see me there—like some cockroach who had set itself on her kitchen counter. I bet my dad had warped the story, turning me into some vagrant son who was too difficult to come back to California and live happily with the family.

  Telling the realtor the truth wouldn’t solve anything. So I was doing the next best thing. I was going to get a few hundred people to help me trash the house my father wanted to sell so badly.

  I hadn’t told Kennedy about the party or invited her. I felt myself getting dragged toward a dark path I didn’t want to bring her down. It stung to think about. To realize just when I’d finally got a taste of something good, I had to push her away.

  I knew my intentions tonight, and I guess I knew I wouldn’t be able to look at her without seeing how fucked up this was. She was my mirror, and right now, I didn’t want a good look at myself.

  I threw back a drink, already well and truly buzzed by that point. Someone had brought speakers, so the music was even louder than usual. There was enough booze for everybody to get blackout drunk, and only an hour after it really got going, it already looked like the most out of control party I’d ever thrown.

  In front of the house, there was a sort of mosh pit of guys that had formed when someone got into a fight, but it managed to devolve into a sustained sort of brawl. People were standing around the outer edge, watching with drinks in hand and cheering whenever someone got a bloody nose and had to work their way out of the skirmish.

  Oblivious to this, another group of people were inside, dancing and grinding on each other in the living room. When I’d gone to get something from my room a few minutes ago, I walked in on a threesome in my bed. I’d kicked them out, locked my door again, and made a mental note to wash every damn thing in my room. I wanted the house trashed, but I still had to sleep in that bed.

  There was even a background roar of engines revving while kids in oversized trucks drove reckless circles behind the house, churning up mud and sliding their vehicles around a makeshift course they’d made into a sort of racetrack.

  I stood in the middle of it all, drink in hand, feeling like the composer of a twisted orchestra. And then I felt a small hand on my arm.

  Kennedy’s wide eyes were looking up at me. “What is all this?”

  Just seeing the way she looked at me felt like it made my guts twist. It was bad enough that I’d learned she didn’t even have the slightest clue about what I was trying to hide all this time—to know I’d been punishing her for nothing. When I looked at her face, I saw myself.

  “A party,” I said.

  “I heard that from my room.” Her voice was careful, measured.

  The moment was a crossroads moment. I could undo the damage I’d already done right now. Tell her the truth and try to work together to fix it. But that was the selfish option. I’d only be trying to spare myself the sting of feeling her drift farther and farther away from me. Even without her mom or my dad in the picture, I’d seen glimpses of it in her face already—the way she looked at me when she saw me drinking. Like my parents, she was judging me for squandering my potential. It would’ve only been a matter of time before I screwed this up on my own, so I might as well fast-track it.

  “Thirsty?” I said. I pointed my drink to a table by the front door where people had set up enough liquor and kegs to fuel a bar for a few days.

  “I’m okay.”

  I felt it again. That silent judgment. It made me want to drink more. “Yeah, well, I gotta go check on some shit. I heard people breaking stuff upstairs.”

  Kennedy was looking at me like she was worried about me, and it pissed me off more.

  “Catch you later, Wheels.”

  I grabbed an entire bottle of
liquor on my way inside. Tonight, was about destruction, and Kennedy had stumbled into the fire. I guessed it was better that she get a taste of what it would really be like to trust me with her heart now.

  33

  Kennedy

  I watched Tristan go, feeling helpless. I stood in the front yard, barely noticing the chaos all around me. I wanted to go after him. Logan’s advice still rang in my head. He’d told me to keep trying if I cared.

  I did care, and right now, I thought chasing after him would only make him push me away more. I decided I’d see him at school tomorrow before his game and let him know I was still here—that I still cared and worried about him. I wasn’t mad that he was trying to push me away, either.

  I was about to leave when a guy who looked too old to be in high school walked up to me. He might have been in college, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “You’re too cute to be all by yourself,” he said. “I’m Grant.” Grant had squinty eyes with a strong nose and jaw. He might’ve been attractive in a way, but the only thing I got from him were creepy vibes.

  “I have a boyfriend, he’s just inside.” I pointed to the house behind him.

  The guy looked, then turned back to me, shrugging. “If I was your boyfriend, I wouldn’t leave you alone.”

  I forced a tight smile. “Yeah, well, you’re not my boyfriend and you’re still not leaving me alone. So…” I left him standing there, turning to leave. I felt a little bad for being rude. But I had a feeling he wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. I walked quickly, still distantly relishing the fact that I was walking, not rolling. But my excitement was cut short once I’d made it about a quarter of the way down the wooded path back to my house.

  I heard quickly approaching footsteps. When I turned, I saw the guy with two of his friends come to a slow stop a few feet away from me. “Where are you going so fast?” He asked. “We were just talking.”

  My heart was in my throat. I thought about running, but the guys looked athletic. I doubted I’d make it far before they caught up to me. I could scream, but who would hear me? The music from the party was loud, even from here.

  “I’m thinking we can show you a few tricks you could take back to your boyfriend,” the guy said. “It’s the least we can do.”

  I had only managed to back up a few steps before I saw Cassian, Gage, and Logan come running into view. I never thought I’d be happy to see Cassian, of all people, but I was.

  “You okay, Kennedy?” Gage asked. “I saw this creep get his friends to run after you when you left.”

  The older guys looked toward Gage and his friends. Even though they were younger, the three of them were covered in muscle and big for their ages. It seemed like the college guys realized it, too. “Fuck ‘em. She’s not worth it.”

  They tried to walk past Cassian too closely, which earned one of the older guys a hard shove that nearly sent him toppling off the path and down into the underbrush.

  I held my breath until they were out of view.

  “You good?” Gage asked again.

  I felt an unexpected welling of emotion that made my throat thick and my eyes sting. “I’m okay.”

  “C’mon,” Logan said. “We’ll walk you home.”

  We headed back to my place in silence until we reached the porch. “Thank you, guys,” I said.

  “It’s just too bad they didn’t want to fight,” Cassian said.

  “Don’t mind him.” Gage smirked. “Cassian is a bloodthirsty lunatic. What he means is you’re welcome. We’re glad we got there when we did.”

  Logan seemed to read the look on my face. “Tristan was inside, I think.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know. Are you guys going to tell him?”

  “If we don’t,” Logan said. “He’ll find out.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure why I dreaded the idea of him knowing he hadn’t been there when I needed help. Maybe it was more that I knew how much he’d beat himself up over it. I wished I could spare him that.

  “You guys had better go before my mom comes home. She might try to run all of you over.”

  Cassian nudged Logan. “That might work out nice for you. Maybe you could sue her insurance to pay for some groceries.”

  Logan’s voice was dry. “You’re hilarious. Stay safe, Kennedy.”

  Gage and Logan gave me a quick wave before the three of them headed back to Tristan’s place.

  Later that night, I was standing over the stove waiting for spaghetti to boil. Mom was going to be coming home a little before midnight, and I wanted to have something ready for her. I didn’t always make her food when she got home this late, but ever since Tristan had come over for dinner, she’d seemed on edge. I wanted to smooth things over between us.

  My wheelchair was nearby, but I took special pleasure in walking freely as I prepared the meal. Little conveniences like not having to dangerously move boiling water from the stove to the sink to dump the pasta while seated were amazing. My mind wandered while I cooked.

  When I was with Tristan, I’d felt strangely free, even before I got out of my chair. He made me feel like it was okay to take risks and be daring—to live. It was the one thing I had never quite figured out on my own.

  Now that it felt like he was drifting away from me, I could already feel the iron chains threatening to close in on me again. Without him, I’d wind up closing myself off again and letting the world turn back into something I just read about and watched on TV.

  I could still hear the dull thumping sound of music coming through the woods from his house. Cars occasionally rolled down the road behind our house to his gated driveway. I wondered if Haisley was in any of them, if she’d feel less complicated than me right now.

  My cheek twitched at the thought.

  I tried not to imagine it, but I saw the two of them in my mind in a darkened room while music bled through the walls. I saw his hands on her and their naked bodies twining together on the bed. I heard him whispering the same dirty jokes in her ears that he had told me.

  I grabbed the pot, swearing when I burned my hand from forgetting to use an oven mitt.

  I was being stupid, and I knew it. I just needed to let him have a little space and trust that he wasn’t the same Tristan who had tormented me over the summer.

  I plated the food, doing my best to stop dwelling on it. I could talk to him tomorrow and we’d clear everything up.

  My mom came home about ten minutes later.

  We both sat quietly at the table—me in my wheelchair and her to my side. She was watching me closely. The paranoid part of me felt like she somehow knew I didn’t need the chair anymore.

  Her attention made me want to do something stupid, like let my eyes go unfocused and pretend I was extra dizzy. I fought the urge and smiled tightly. “Is the sauce good? We didn’t have the right kind of tomato paste, so I tried to fiddle with the recipe a little.”

  “Your shoes are muddy,” she said.

  My chest tightened. “Oh. Yeah.”

  She raised her eyebrows, waiting.

  “I wasn’t feeling that dizzy earlier, and I got the stupid idea to try walking a little outside. But it hit me once I got up. Still dizzy,” I added with a nervous laugh.

  She waited a few seconds before sipping her tea. “I think I’ll take a little blood tomorrow morning and run it at the hospital. Sounds like your dosages may be off.”

  “It’s okay, really. I think I was just being optimistic, more than anything.”

  “No. Better safe than sorry.”

  I smiled thinly. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  34

  Tristan

  My head still pounded from last night’s party. I wasn’t sure I actually fell asleep at any point, and I’d drank so much I thought I could still feel the buzz. My goal had been to numb the pain. It had worked, except now I was coming out the other end of it and it all came seeping back in.

  Kennedy’s mom. My dad. The house.

  Kennedy.

 
; I still saw the look on her face when I left her waiting in the grass out front. She had looked like she wanted to cry, and I hated myself for it. But more and more, I was realizing I was only going to drag her into my own mess if I kept pursuing her.

  We had practice before school on Fridays to walk through our game plan for the game that night. It was five in the morning, my brain felt like it was trying to claw its way out of my head, and the coaches were blasting whistles every few seconds.

  So when Logan tried to get my attention, I wasn’t exactly in the mood.

  “Hey,” he said again, pushing my shoulder until I finally glared up at him.

  “What?”

  “I wanted you to hear it from me. Last night, some creeps tried to corner Kennedy on her way back home. Nothing happened, though. Me, Cassian, and Gage chased them off and then made sure she got home okay.”

  My insides went icy. “Last night?” I asked stupidly.

  “Last night,” Logan said.

  “Fuckweeds!” Coach yelled, blasting his whistle a few inches from my head. “This is a walkthrough. Not an ice cream fucking social. Run the goddamn play!”

  I went through the motions, tossing passes and calling plays, but my head was somewhere else.

  I kept picturing the moment I’d had a choice. I decided she was better off without me. Safer. And what had that accomplished?

  I’d sent her right into the arms of some fucking creeps.

  The truth was that Kennedy had spent her whole life on the outside looking in. Without me keeping an eye on her, high school was going to eat her alive and spit her back out. She still needed me to protect her.

  Once I’d showered, changed, and made it to lunch, I finally spotted Kennedy. Except she was in her wheelchair again. I frowned, getting up and leaving Cassian, Gage, and Logan behind at our table.

  “Hey,” I said carefully once I reached her. I knew there was a metric fuckton of things I should be saying to her right now. Apologizing for last night, for starters, but I needed to know she was okay before I even got into any of that.