Black dots start to cloud my vision, and I know that I’m probably having a panic attack. The world feels like it’s getting smaller, colder, and all hope ceases to exist.
It’s just one thing after another. Up until this point in my life, it feels like most things have gone my way. Or, I’ve been in control and worked hard to make them go my way. But the two catastrophic events that have now pummeled me into the earth? They were out of my control.
Maybe that’s how I should have always been living. Out of control. Not so responsibly.
Because clearly, it didn’t matter anyway.
I feel untethered, like I’m floating outside of what my normal life used to be.
I’m still reeling when I call Rachel, but I need a distraction. I’ve never been the sort of girl not to deal with my problems head-on, and aside from a few rough EMT shifts, I don’t mask pain with alcohol.
But tonight, I need to. “Let’s go to Everdeen.”
A squeal comes through the other end of the phone. “Oh my God, yes! Genius idea. You want Scott to pick you up anything?”
I love that Rachel is the sort of best friend who doesn’t question a spontaneous decision, even though she probably hears the upset in my voice. She’s been so caring and kind in her own way through this Everett breakup, as has Bianca. They got me drunk, had candy, and movie marathons, offered to burn pictures of him at a barn party in the bonfire.
“Vodka. I want a lot of vodka.”
For all I’ve been through in this new year, I deserve to go a little crazy.
And drown my problems along with it.
33
Everett
About three days after the visit from the burly man and slim guy, I went to talk to Dr. Liu.
I told her I couldn’t disclose my op, that I’d been on a mission and it had gone terribly wrong. She didn’t push me. When I questioned whether I could spend some time away from Brentwick, maybe at a college, sorting my shit out she’d hesitantly agreed it might be good.
While she told me that running from my problems, from my demons, wasn’t the answer, there could be something to experiencing a normal college experience.
I didn’t tell her that I was trying to run from the government. That I might be in real danger, whether it be legal or otherwise. I didn’t tell her that in order to keep Kennedy, and everyone else I love, safe, I had to leave them all behind. I didn’t tell her that an hour after I left her office, I smashed Kennedy’s heart into a million pieces.
Two and a half months later, I find myself waking up on the shitty college bunk in an unoccupied room in Graden’s fraternity. I’m lucky they even had a bed, much less are allowing me to stay here as a non-student and non-brother. But Graden has some pull and understood the look on my face when I showed up telling him I needed to get away from Brentwick.
“Morning, douche breath.” Someone wraps on the door, and it sounds like Graden’s frat brother, Riley.
This house is loud, disgusting, often crowded and you have to scrounge for food. I’ve been sitting in on some of Graden’s business courses, to see if college is for me, and thus far I’m unimpressed. I’m unimpressed with everything about campus life, but at least it isn’t home.
At least I don’t have to answer questions that people don’t want answers to.
Not that it matters anymore. I broke Kennedy’s heart for nothing, or so it seems. A month after they visited my house, the Marine Corps Criminal Investigation Division settled their investigation. It seems that the American government doesn’t want to openly admit they were about to bomb a village full of innocent people, and so they can’t tie me to tampering with the mission because it would go sideways on them as well.
I walk away with my silence paid for by fully intact military benefits, and no one speaks of what happened for the rest of time. My discharge is honorable, but the military wants to erase that I ever existed in their ranks.
I should go back for her, explain … but I can’t. What happens when the next person comes after me. If the enemy who held me captive finds me. A lot crazier shit has happened in this fucked-up world, trust me I know firsthand, and I don’t want Kennedy anywhere near that.
“Party tonight. We need you to pick up sherbet for the jungle juice and Jell-O for the shots.” Graden pops his head in, then promptly pops back out.
Part of my agreement of living here is running errands no one else wants to or has time to run.
Another party? That’s no surprise. And I can’t even be pissed off about it.
Drinking myself to numbness is my favorite pastime these days.
“KEG STAND!”
A high-pitched girl’s squeal rains over the party, and I cringe, taking another sip of my whiskey. I should just start drinking out of the bottle at this point, that’s how annoyed these people make me. Giggling and yelling and just generally being obnoxious.
Graden’s friends probably would have been the type of guys I hung out with back in the day, but now they just seem like assholes. The girls are too obvious, too sloppy.
The only good thing about these parties is that there seems to be endless alcohol, and that’s on my menu.
I’ve had about three whiskey and ginger ales so far, so my buzz is coming on but not fast enough. This week has been particularly hard with missing Kennedy, and I just want to blur the vision of her in my head.
Walking through the party, where pairs are making out or grinding in time to the music, and one dude is about to puke all over the floor, I sip and try to get in the mood.
Then, just as I pass the living room of the giant house, my eyes lock on something. And this is either the worst nightmare I’ve ever had or the best dream.
Because standing across the frat house, in a stark white crop top and the tightest black jeans I’ve ever seen, is Kennedy.
She sees me in the same moment, our gazes an unbreakable line across the room. At first, she rears back, a small O forming on her lips. She looks confused, or stunned, but that quickly fades to hurt, and then anger.
Raw, vicious anger.
Jesus Christ, is she stunning. When I look at her, I feel like it’s been decades instead of a few months. That’s how much I’ve missed her.
Even like this, even knowing I should stay away from her, we can’t help the explosions of chemistry between us. They aren’t sparks, they’re much more than that. The kind of detonations that destroy lands, cause loss of life.
And if I allow myself to get closer to her, she’ll lose her heart.
It appears I have no choice though, since in about three seconds flat Kennedy is marching across the room. She shoves aside drunk girls and the guys playing beer pong to get to me.
“This is where you’ve been all this time?” She’s seething, and I smell the vodka on her breath.
No hi, no nice to see you. Although why would she say those things? Maybe I expected her to be her reasonable self, but with what I did to her and how I left, I shouldn’t expect that either.
I should walk away, hide out somewhere else on campus. But, there isn’t a reason to avoid her anymore. And God knows I want to take her up to my flimsy bunk and kiss all the pain away between us. But I’m not doing this in the middle of this ridiculous, loud party.
Taking her by the elbow I walk us through the rooms and out to the backyard.
“Don’t touch me!” She wrenches away as soon as we step off the deck, into the darkness of the tree line.
“I didn’t want to have this conversation in there.” I try to put an apology in my tone.
“Why? You didn’t want to shout out to the world that you’re just not that into me?” Every word of Kennedy’s is a dagger.
“Kennedy, please, I never should have—” All I want to do is explain, to wrap my arms around her.
But she cuts me off. “You disappeared, Everett! After wondering before in my life if you were even alive, you thought it was cool to just leave and not even let me know if you were dead!”
She’
s hysterical, and I know it’s part alcohol, but I’m to blame for this hurt. And she’s not done.
“If you didn’t see me tonight, would you have ever come back? Would you have ever explained? Or is it only because I showed up unexpectedly, that I stumbled into your path, that now you want to talk? I always make it so easy, Everett. So easy for you to break my heart.”
A tear rolls down her high, olive cheek bone. I move to swipe it with my thumb, but she backs away.
“Do I really mean nothing to you? After all of it?” Her face falls.
And for as damaged as my own heart has been, I now know I messed hers up worse. What I said to her, it shreds me every time I think about it. Even if it was necessary at the time.
“I never meant a damn word of what I said.” I hold my head up high, because now I can finally tell her the truth.
What happens next is nothing I ever expected.
Kennedy cracks her palm across my face, the sound of the slap resounding in the dark.
Holy shit, she just slapped me.
Kennedy’s finger is in my face in the next minute.
“You have tossed me and my feelings around for the last time, Everett Brock. I told you I was in love with you, and you stared me in the face and said you didn’t feel it back. You and your secrets, the things you keep hidden, have ruined me for the last time. I may not be okay for a long time, but at least I won’t have to live in the purgatory you forced me into. Screw you, Everett Brock.”
She takes off, but I stay hidden in the tree line, my cheek stinging.
I underestimated just how badly I hurt her, and for that I’m a fool. I’ve been so focused on hardening my heart, on morphing back into the injured, broody soldier who came home all those months ago, that I forgot to feel. I forgot to realize just how tragically I broke her heart. How I broke my own.
Tonight, Kennedy is furious and fuming with alcohol-induced confidence.
But, tomorrow, that’s my chance. I have to pull out all the stops.
Including the letter that tells her exactly what her letter told me.
34
Kennedy
I wake up in a fog of vodka, arguments, and heartbreak.
“Fuck me.” Bianca groans beside me, both of us stuffed into the frame of a twin bed.
We’re sleeping in some random dorm room of a friend of a friend of Scott’s. He and Rachel are on a futon in the next room, and we heard them having drunk, sloppy sex last night. Which was gross.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” I say, as the room spins.
I slap a hand over my eye, willing the light to go away.
“You went so freaking hard last night. I’m so proud.” She rolls over, snuggling me.
A huge weight jumps on us, and it lets out an oomph. “I’m proud, too. But I’d be prouder if I also had a breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s. My stomach hates me.”
Rachel wedges herself in between us, and her elbow stabs me in the gut. “Hey! Watch it. You’re going to make me toss up last night’s … ugh”
I can’t even say the word vodka without dry-heaving.
“You went H.A.M after we left that frat party.” Rachel chuckles, snuggling her nose right up to my cheek.
She wants to be lovey dovey in the morning, while all I want to do is get some blackout curtains and Advil.
“Oh God, I don’t even remember how we got home.” I rub my temples.
“Well, we basically carried you up the stairs. You were pissed after your fight with …” Bianca trails off.
Images of last night come back in hazy, blurred scenes. The parties, the drinks, and …
“Oh shit, Everett.” Dread fills my stomach, and I really think I’m going to hurl now.
Rachel points her finger up to the ceiling. “AND, bingo!”
My heart is racing now as I shoot straight up in the twin bed, shifting all three of us. Shit, shit, shit. I completely forgot, thanks to the alcohol I downed because of said fight, that I saw Everett last night.
And then my hand clamps over my mouth. “Oh my God. Did I slap him?”
“Yep.” Bianca cackles. “I wish I could have seen it, but you were bragging about it so hilariously that I almost feel like I was there.”
I’m freaking out. Internally, it feels like I’m going to poop out my heart. Tears form in the back of my throat. My hands begin to sweat.
“What did I do?” I whisper.
Rachel sits up, slinging her arms around my shoulders. “What needed to be done a long time ago. Everett has tossed you about for years, bringing you up so high and then slamming you back down. I’ve seen you torture yourself over the past few months because he left. He deserved to be screamed at. He deserved the slap.”
She’s probably right, but I still feel horrible.
Bianca clears her throat. “But, if you did want to clear the whole mess up, he’s been sleeping on a bench outside the dorm since three a.m.”
“What?” I screech.
They both nod, and Rachel speaks first. “Yep. You needed to give him the smackdown, but man do I love a good grovel. The boy found out where we were staying and has been blowing my phone up since the wee hours of the night. So, if you want to hear him out, he’s downstairs.”
Do I want to hear him out? Aside from the fact that I could toss the contents of my stomach up in two minutes, and I probably look like crap, I do want to talk to Everett. There are so many things left unknown, left unsaid. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still think he was my end game.
Like I’d told Mom, and my friends, on various occasions; Everett and I had something deeper than just the first time puppy love. I have never felt one ounce of what I feel for Everett for any other boy. I don’t think I ever will. So if it takes us sitting down to talk this out, to discuss how much he’s hurt me and how we move forward, then I want to do it.
“You have to help me look like I didn’t just die in a bottle of vodka,” I tell my friends.
Twenty minutes later, I have a halfway decent outfit of jeans and a sweater on, a face of brief makeup, my hair has been braided by Bianca, and Advil aids in the process of my terrible headache subsiding.
When I walk outside, the sun beaming bright in my face and a cool late March breeze blowing, I immediately spot him. He’s stretching on a park bench not five feet from the entrance of Scott’s friend’s dorm. It’s completely unfair that even when sleeping drunk on a goddamn wooden bench, he looks practically edible.
Everett doesn’t see me yet, and I take the opportunity to pump myself up. He’s too disarming, too gorgeous, and I let that wash over me and then push it away. I can’t be swayed by how affected I am by him, because there are serious things we need to talk about. I need to be strong, to be the Kennedy that everyone else knows me to be.
“Everett,” I speak up, catching his attention.
Those green eyes snap to me, all smoldering and still full of hazy sleep. “Oh, thank God.”
I feel the puzzled look that falls over my face. “What?”
He looks me up and down, as if he’s checking for damage. “I spent half the night trying to call you and your friends, or find you at parties. I walked all over campus. I had these horrible visions of you ending up somewhere, drunk in a ditch.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Funny, the things you imagine when somebody just up and leaves without another word.”
My message is heard loud and clear as Everett sighs. “Kennedy, I’m sorry. I should have told you I was all right. That I was safe. I just … I didn’t know how to keep in contact without wanting to come back to you.”
I sit down beside him, the electric force always present between us, but I keep my distance. “Why would you not want to come back to me? What was so awful, what did I do that was so wrong—”
“No, no. You did nothing wrong. You’re, everything about you is perfect. Sometimes I don’t even believe just how good and wonderful you are. It’s me, Kennedy. There are things I can’t tell you, or could
n’t tell you. Things that would be dangerous to you if you knew. Or, and this is so selfish of me, would make you look at me differently.”
I slap my palms against my jeans. “I’m not sure how much clearer I could have been, Everett. I don’t care about what you did. I mean, I care about it. I want to know. But nothing you could say would make me not love you. I told you I love you, Everett. And you ran.”
When he turns his eyes to me, they’re so sad, my heart breaks a little more. “It destroyed me to do that to you. It feels like there are just a thousand knives lodged in my heart at all times. Of course, I feel the same. I was a coward, but you have to believe me. I was protecting you, too.”
My heart begins to beat again, under his spell as it’s always been. Is he telling the truth? And does he really love me, too?
“The reason I was captured in the first place … it was my fucking fault. I-I did something. Unforgivable, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t.”
There is desperation in his voice, like he wants to tell, like he’s right on the edge. I grab his hand, my eyes intense on his. “You can tell me, Everett. Let me carry this with you.”
He shakes his head, like he’s deciding against it. The root of all of our problems were the secrets he carried home. Maybe if they can be brought into the light, we’ll be able to move forward.
“Will you go somewhere with me? We can’t, not here,” he says, looking around.
Students have begun to wander out of their Sunday morning dorm caves in search of greasy breakfast foods. Our conversation isn’t private anymore, and I know that I shouldn’t even put up a fight. I want to know the things he is going to tell me. I’m not foolish enough to stick to stubborn pride or hard-to-get plans.
“Yes,” I answer simply.
He leads and I follow, and I don’t know yet if that’s into the darkness or the light.
35
Everett
Hometown Heartless Page 16