“I can’t fucking wait that long,” he said. “Now fucking move.”
He got into the car and started it. One thing about Heath was that when he locked onto something, he wouldn’t give it up. I climbed into the passenger seat and watched as he started to drive.
He seemed fine.
But I was drunk.
So what the fuck did I know?
My eyes became heavy a few minutes into the drive. I knew better than to poke at Heath. When he got into a mood, you had to give him some space and time to figure his shit out. I told myself that I would give it about ten minutes and then start asking questions. This wasn’t just an I couldn’t get it up and cheat on my fiancée thing. Maybe he was actually growing up a little and realizing what he had in life. Which was a good thing. Better now than fucking up the rest of his life.
I shut my eyes for a minute. Just a quick minute.
I felt the car jerk and it woke me up.
“Yo, Heath, what the fuck are…”
I looked over at him.
He was asleep, too.
Head against the window. Hands at his sides.
“Holy fuck!” I yelled.
I grabbed the wheel, but it was too late. It was too fucking late.
The car was already off the road.
And I couldn’t swerve to miss the tree…
Chapter 2
Serafina
I’d bitten my middle finger nail down to the skin. It hurt so badly, but I couldn’t stop doing it. I had already chewed my lips to the point of bleeding. I needed to switch that though because nobody wanted to kiss someone with cracked, chapped, bloody lips.
The house party was busy. And I mean… busy.
People were standing on the stairs, just to have space to talk.
My back was against the wall in the hallway, just beyond the foyer. The front door kept opening and closing, and I kept looking at it as though he was going to show up here.
Not a chance.
He wasn’t the kind of guy that came to these parties. Which was really cool. I mean, the college thing was fun. It had its purpose. But I was so over it. It was almost like an extension of high school, except now, you were able to party without the worry of the cops showing up, unless things got too far out of control. Which they often did because the stupid jocks thought that they ruled the world… which they did.
If anything, campus security would shut things down and do everything possible to keep the jocks safe and sound before anything bad happened. And if the real police needed to come, or an ambulance needed to come, the jocks and super popular people were ushered away in private.
“Hey, there you are!” a voice yelled over the music.
It was Kyle.
Messy blond hair, super blue eyes, a smile that made any woman’s heart skip a beat. He was holding two bottles of beer and offered me one.
I took it, just to be nice.
Any girl at the party would want to be me right then. To have Kyle smiling and talking to you was a big deal. His sole purpose was to get me upstairs into one of the beds. He’d say anything to get me naked and when he was done, he would sweetly find the right words to get out of the bedroom before things became too serious.
Everyone ate that crap up. Including me.
But not anymore.
I was off onto something else.
Kyle leaned down and I smelled his cologne.
“Hey, how about we go somewhere quiet? It’s as loud as hell here.”
“I’m good right here,” I said.
“You are? I’m good here too then…”
He put a hand to my waist.
I grabbed his wrist and moved it away. I shook my head and he curled his lip, angry and confused.
“You okay?” he called out.
“Fine.”
“Oh, you’ve got your period thing going on.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Kyle leaned back down. His lips brushed against my ear. “That doesn’t mean you have to… you know… I’m good with whatever, Sera. Just saying. You can give me one and I’ll owe you…”
“I’m good,” I yelled at him. “I’m really good, Kyle.”
“Well, what-the-fuck-ever then,” he snapped.
He snatched the bottle of beer out of my hand and pushed through the crowd.
I felt someone clutch my arm. “Don’t tell me you just rejected Kyle.”
I glanced at my Hailey and nodded. “I’m not interested.”
“Okay, you’re coming with me now,” she yelled.
Hailey tugged at my wrist to go the opposite way to the front door. The front door was my escape tonight. The front door was my exit and entry into something that nobody at this party would completely understand. In other words, there was no way in hell that I was going in the opposite direction of the front door.
I resisted Hailey’s pull and motioned toward the front door. She curled her lip in confusion, but went with me anyway.
We moved through the crowd in the foyer, to the door, and off the front porch into the front yard. That’s where the crowd thinned out near the sidewalk, just a handful of people standing around, smoking and quietly chatting.
“You just turned down Kyle,” Hailey said. “I don’t know how drunk you are…”
“I’m not drunk at all,” I said. “I’m totally sober.”
“What?”
“I’m not interested.”
“How can you not be interested?”
“Already been there,” I said with a shoulder shrug.
“Already been there?” Hailey asked. “What does that mean?”
“You know what that means,” I said. “And it doesn’t matter. You want Kyle? Go and get him. He’s pissed off, so he’ll probably jump right at you.”
“What does that mean?” Hailey asked again.
“Nothing,” I said. “Jesus, Hailey, I’m meeting someone. Okay?”
She shook her head and caught my arm again. “What? Meeting someone? Who?”
“A guy.”
“A guy? Who?”
“I can’t say.”
“Ohmygod,” she said. “You’re meeting someone from another house, aren’t you? You’re meeting one of the older guys I bet. You little…”
“Shut up,” I growled. “It’s just… something, okay? I’m not talking about it. I’ve sort of known him for a while now. He’s not like the guys here.”
“You’re going after someone with money, aren’t you? The law school kids? The business majors?”
“Please,” I said. “That’s so wrong the way you split people up into groups.”
“Oh, and I’m wrong about it? Wait a second though… this mystery man. Is he even on campus? I mean, at this college?”
I laughed. “Yes. Okay? Yes.”
Hailey looked even more puzzled. “Oh, I need to know who this is.”
“Not a chance,” I said. “I’m not messing this up.”
“So you’re having some secret thing?”
“Look at it how you want,” I said. “I just…” I turned my head and looked at the house. The music. The people. The partying.
“Well, whatever,” Hailey said. “I’m going to find Kyle then. As long as it won’t make you mad at me.”
“It’s not going to make me mad,” I said. “But everything you hear is true. What he says. What he does. He’s going to leave you feeling empty and horrible.”
“I’m okay with that,” she said. “Go and enjoy yourself, wherever you’re going. Please be safe. Call me if you need anything. At least give me a hint…”
“No,” I said. “Nothing bad is going to happen. Believe me. It’s not some stupid college party.”
Hailey rolled her eyes and walked away.
I stood there for a few seconds and studied the house. I bit my lip and took a shaky breath. I dug into my small bag for some minty gum. I had no idea what my breath smelled like. I also sprayed myself with perfume. Not that stupid high school body spray stuff. But actual
perfume, so that I didn’t smell like a college party.
I slipped my hands into my pockets and walked away.
I had parked my car around the block. Most of the people at the party walked or got rides with the intention of staying, walking, or maybe doing stupid things like drinking and driving. As if it wasn’t scary enough that the quarterback of the football team was killed not that long ago in a drunken car crash. Driving off campus, going off road, slamming into a tree. Almost killing the other two people in the car. Idiots.
When I got into my car, I checked myself in the mirror.
My heart started to pound.
This was months in the making. Maybe longer. Maybe from the first day of college. See, Hailey thought I was being too good or something stupid, but that wasn’t the case at all. Her version of bad wasn’t good enough for me.
So I drove away from the party and out of the town.
I parked right where he said to park.
A quiet street with houses that were mostly dark.
I had to walk two blocks to get to his house. The front lawn was a hill with a crap ton of brick steps. Enough steps that I had time to really consider what I was about to do. The road I was about to go down. The only thing I could say, was that the way my heart raced as I reached the porch and pressed the doorbell, it really made me feel alive. More alive than I’d felt in a long time. All that surrounded me was death and being let down. But this was… something new.
The front door opened and he stood there, a grin slowly spreading across his face. The white sleeves of his button down shirt had been rolled up two times each. The last time I saw him in class, his sleeves were down. He wasn’t wearing a tie either now. He had the same black glasses on and he reached for my hand.
“Serafina,” his manly voice said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” I whispered. “Professor…”
NOW
Chapter 3
Trev
Sometimes she called at the worst possible times. Sometimes she didn’t call for days or weeks. Those were the best days or weeks. Because when she called, I would just stare at the phone, waiting for the call to ring out. The problem was that she would call right back. Again and again and again. She would call until I picked up. And she would go after my heart in a way that nobody else ever could. And she wouldn’t let up until she got what she wanted.
Which was me.
Going to her apartment meant driving by the spot where it happened.
Opening my eyes and seeing Heath asleep at the wheel. My brain unable to make a faster decision, not that it really mattered though. We were already off the road. There was no real logical way to turn the wheel to save the car. It smashed against the tree, going fast enough that I remembered hearing the crunching of the metal and the shattering of the glass. I didn’t wake up until the next day, where I found myself in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines.
I was alone.
My body hurting like… well, like I had been in a car accident.
Matt ended up walking away with nothing. Ironically enough, he was lucky because he wasn’t buckled in and because he was lying down. I got semi lucky by reaching over for the wheel. The airbags punched me, knocked me out, and kept me out.
As for Heath…
There was still a memorial at the scene of the accident. Right on the side of the road. A faded cross with faded flowers. A small pile of candles that had long since been lit had tipped over. A picture of Heath had been there, but was now gone. My guess was that Becca took the picture so that she didn’t see it all the time.
It was a big deal for a month afterwards. We had to talk to the cops about everything that happened. There was nothing they could do to fix it or turn back time. Heath was drunk and he fell asleep. He crashed the car and was killed. Simple as that. I faced a bigger judgment when it came to our parents. The wrong son died, apparently. My mother married Heath’s father. His father had every intention of his son going pro and making millions. That was gone now. And my mother followed Heath’s father down a road of rage where the outlet was me.
In some ways, I expected it and welcomed it.
They needed a place to grieve and I was an easy target.
I was driving - sober - when my phone beeped. I glanced to my right and saw the text message.
Where the fuck are you?
I rolled my eyes and gripped the wheel tighter.
Everyone was pissed at me… and yet they didn’t know, maybe, the worst part of it all.
Everything in life was twisted and fucked up. I worked. I thought. I drank. And I did other dumb shit.
All I really wanted was a chance to explain what had happened. The truth as I knew it. But I couldn’t put my feelings above anyone else’s. At least not yet.
And that whole not yet game was deadly, because time buried itself over and over again.
I parked my car in the parking lot at the apartment complex, and hung my head low as I walked to the front door. The main door squeaked a little less than the second floor door. Shit, I didn’t even need to ring the doorbell anymore. She would just stand at the apartment door, pacing, waiting to hear that squeak of the second door.
The apartment door would open and she’d step out and stand there.
She’d look right at me.
Tired. Burned out. Depressed. Her heart destroyed. Her eyes…
I’d stand for a couple of seconds to give her a chance to reconsider.
But then the same thing would happen.
I’d rush toward her and she’d jump into my arms.
Our lips would touch and my heart would race, although it didn’t anymore.
She’d start to cry as she clawed at my face.
“Take me, Trev,” she said to me, my mind catching up to what was happening right then.
I had her in my arms and stepped into her apartment.
The apartment she used to share with Heath.
“I’ve got you, Becca,” I whispered in between kisses.
I was the only comfort my stepbrother’s fiancée wanted…
* * *
Becca curled herself up in her sheets, hugging a pillow that Heath used to sleep on. She swore it still smelled like him.
I stood up from the bed and put my shirt back on. I wiped my mouth, still able to taste her.
It wasn’t what anyone would think.
All I ever wanted was to tell Becca the truth of that night and be there for her. How this arrangement happened was another disaster of a mess in my life. It was something that she wanted and needed. In some twisted way, I convinced myself that this was okay because it was better than her going to some bar to pick up some guy for a one-night stand. At least I wouldn’t hurt her. I respected what she needed and wanted and was okay when she cried. When she swung at me. When she kicked me away like I was a stranger. When she hugged the sheets and the pillow and groaned why? over and over.
I walked around the bed and looked at her.
She had fallen apart. She dropped all of her classes and lost all intentions of going to law school. She actually hadn’t been to class since it happened. She lived off whatever money she had saved up from her waitress and bartending jobs, which I knew wasn’t going to last her for much longer.
I reached for her, touching her foot over the covers.
She quickly kicked, not wanting me near her or touching her.
Which I understood.
I’d served my purpose and it was time for me to go.
This was the darkest secret of my current life. Nobody knew what was going on between me and Becca. Which was, honestly, nothing. I felt nothing for her. She felt nothing for me. I was just some kind of security blanket for her. In my heart, I felt bad for all I knew that Heath had done behind her back. And at the same time, for the fact that on the night of the accident, he was trying to get home to her to tell her how much he did love her.
I stood at the door and looked back at Becca one last time.
She moved
and I saw the flicker of the diamond ring on her left hand.
She still wore the engagement ring.
Even when she and I…
I knew better than to say goodbye to her.
I walked down the hallway and paused at the small kitchen. I got out her favorite coffee mug and put a tea bag in it. I put the sugar dish next to the mug, a spoon in the mug, and filled the electric tea kettle for her to have tea when she got out of bed.
I left the apartment and got back into my truck.
I drove away and pulled over at the memorial. I kept the truck running while I looked at it.
Everything was wrong.
My phone rang - my mother was calling.
I rolled my eyes, knowing that I was late for dinner.
As messed up as it all had gotten, my mother insisted that I come over for dinner at least once every couple of weeks. Just to try and salvage the image of a family that had never actually been there.
I pulled away from the memorial, my heart missing Heath, but not as much as it should have.
* * *
Mom hugged me as though she hadn’t seen me in years.
She was like that now. Torn between defending the way John was angry over Heath dying, and the fact that I was her only son now and that me driving was as scary as when I first got my license.
She touched my face. “How are you? How’s work?”
“I’m good,” I said. “Work’s busy.”
“You think about school? Remember, like I said? Look into that trade school. I talked to John and…”
“Talked to me about what?” a voice boomed from the doorway to the den.
John appeared from the shadows, a glass of amber scotch in his hand. His normally slicked back hair was dry and messy. His eyes slightly squinted, nice and drunk.
“Oh, John,” Mom said. “I was telling Trev how we talked about him going to that trade school. The auto school. Right? We were going to help him pay for it.”
John waved a hand. “Yeah, right. He’s not going to school. Look at him.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said.
“I’d offer you a drink,” John said, “But then I’d have to give you my car keys to make you drink it.”
EVERYTHING WRONG WITH US_a novel by: Page 2