EVERYTHING WRONG WITH US_a novel by:

by Jaxson Kidman

  I started the car and saw Nick from the corner of my eye. He had a shit eating grin on his face. I threw him the finger again. He simply waved, enjoying seeing me the way I was at that moment.

  But the moment was about to pass and be gone for good.

  Or so I thought.

  Chapter 8

  Serafina

  When he stuck his hand into his back pocket and pulled it out, something came out with it and fell to the floor. It wasn’t my money either. It was a piece of paper. I shouldn’t have given two craps about it. I should have told him that something had fallen out of his pocket. Instead, I stood there and waited for him to get into my car before I stepped forward and quickly crouched to grab the paper.

  I stood and saw my car backing out of the garage bay, so I snuck it into my pocket.

  Swallowing hard, I felt guilty, knowing exactly what I had done. Invading Trev’s privacy. Not that he was actually trying to be hidden at all. It was the opposite. I was the one hiding. Here I had a really good looking guy who wanted my number, wanted to call me, wanted to hang out. Anyone I know would have been blushing and wiping the drool off their bottom lip if a guy like Trev wanted to hang out with them. But me? I stutter stepped, bit my lip, and reached for the low hanging fruit of excuses.

  Trev opened the car door and climbed out. He stood there and waited for me to come to him.

  “You should really change the oil more often,” he said. “I put a sticker inside the windshield. When the mileage matches that sticker, get the oil changed. As far as the air filter stuff goes, I can look into that later and change it or whatever. But for now, you’re good.”

  “Thanks. I was driving home…” I let the words fall away. I felt the guilt pouring from my eyes as I stared at him. Seconds away from blurting out that I took something of his, or just handing the piece of paper back. Heck, for all I knew, it was a receipt for breakfast.

  “You’re all set then,” Trev said. “I counted your cash. You’re about ten bucks short. You know, labor costs.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll get that to you. I promise.”

  “So we get to see each other again then, huh?”

  I didn’t want my cheeks to get warm, they just did.

  He side stepped and held the car door open for me. I climbed inside and he gently shut the door.

  “I’m serious, Sera, about the oil and stuff. I’d hate to see your engine get damaged from something like that.”

  I looked up at him. His jaw was so perfectly beautiful. I just wanted to touch it. Run my finger across it. But then what? What the hell would come of it? At some point, he’d want to know everything about me. I had already warned him that everything was wrong. Did he really want to hear about my best friend? Did he really want to hear that I was sleeping with one of my professors?

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “Uh… you have my number. But when I get that money…”

  “Oh. Right. You want to call me.”

  “I mean…”

  “Skip just coming here,” Trev said. “I agree. We can meet somewhere else. Make the exchange.”

  “Okay then,” I said.

  Trev laughed.

  Then he made a dangerous move.

  His hand reached into my car. He touched my face with just his thumb. I smelled oil and grease, a far cry from the cleaned up smell of Max’s skin, mixing with his expensive cologne.

  A fire suddenly raged through my body, making my toes curl in my shoes. I had to try and casually exhale through my nose, but I felt a little dizzy.

  “I meant what I said,” Trev said. “About being that guy. I’m not. You intrigue me a little, Sera. You don’t fit in with the rest of everyone. I like that. And you said everything was wrong. I can relate to that.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  Trev took his hand back and backed away from the car. He folded his arms and winked. “I guess you’ll have to call me to find out.”

  Trev reached into his pocket and took out his phone. A few seconds later my phone vibrated with a text message from a number I didn’t have programmed in. I guess I now had Trev’s number.

  I liked the flirting and I liked the fact that he stood there and watched me drive away. I kept looking in the mirror until I couldn’t see him any longer.

  That’s when I thought about what was in my pocket.

  Yeah, I was going to invade Trev’s privacy a little… but let’s be fair here - he had already started to invade my heart.

  * * *

  It was two nights later, and I was outside on a break during a bartending shift when I finally had the nerve to look at the piece of paper that fell from Trev’s pocket. Yeah, it took me that long. I straddled the fine line between looking and wanting to do the right thing, even though the words right and wrong weren’t exactly friends in my life.

  It had been a long night so far, too.

  Dealing with college people was fine when I could come and go. But to stand there behind a bar and deal with them all made my skin crawl. The more they drank, the louder they got. Everyone was looking for a hook up. Everyone was looking for a fight. Our college football team (GO BIRDS!) started to blow a ten point lead and that pissed everyone off. Not to mention that we were running behind in the kitchen. Slow food and more drinks meant that everyone was extra drunk and annoyed.

  I stood outside with another waitress - Laura. She smoked on her cigarette, hugging herself, her knees bobbing as though she were standing in frigid air.

  “You want one?” she asked me, smoke pouring from her mouth.

  I curled my lip and reminded myself not to tell her where I really wanted her to go.

  Did you know that my best friend never even touched one of these things? Never even tried one. Not even during those wild, early, teenaged rebellious years. When all the kids were trying it. Nope. She refused, because she always told me they could make you sick. And then she…

  “Sera?”

  I blinked fast. “Sorry. No thanks. I’m good. I’ve about two more minutes.”

  “I’ve got two seconds,” Laura said. She sucked on the cigarette and flicked it away. It hit the ground, still burning. “I swear, if someone else even tries to touch my ass, I’m breaking their fucking wrist.”

  “Just tell Don,” I said. “He’ll meet them out front and turn them into burger meat.”

  We both laughed. Don was the cook and was a champion powerlifter. If by some chance things got out of hand, we would have Don come out. One look at him and you would stop dead in your tracks.

  Once Laura went back inside, I took the piece of paper out of my pocket.

  I unfolded it, knowing it was going to be something stupid. Then I’d feel like an idiot for letting this build up inside me for days.

  But to my surprise…

  Hey -

  In my head I still call you ‘little’, even though I’m sure by now you’re seven feet tall. Right? You could probably lift a car over your head and you probably eat more than I do, which is saying something. That makes me laugh. It’d be fun one of these days to come and pick you up and go for some wings or something. There’s this place with all-you-can-eat wings for like twelve bucks. I can sit there for hours and shut the place down. Imagine the damage we could do?

  You’d have to know me though to… well, that’s life though. I mean, I know how this goes. There are boundaries and all that. I’m not sure if you know what that means. See, I don’t think we can really ever talk about the past. Your past and my past are crazily different. And that’s good. I guess my point is that as long as you’re happy, I can be happy too. We just can’t ask each other too many questions. The truth is that the questions you would ask would make me angry and make you confused. The questions I would ask would make you angry and make me confused. You see what I’m saying? I fear that we’d end up as enemies then. I’ve been through that before. I grew up with a stepbrother where everything was so different for us. He was the king of the world and I
was just there. I existed. I didn’t mind though, because I never really tried to be anything other than myself. But for my stepbrother, he was already envisioned as being this… thing… and I think he hated that he had to live up to it.

  So I don’t want you to be that to me, or me to be that to you. I kind of just want us to be real with each other. I know that sounds dumb, right? Here I am saying we can’t talk about the past or ask questions, yet I’m telling you that we need to be real with each other. I guess that does mean that we have to go down that dark road together.

  I stopped reading there and folded it up. I felt horrible for reading what I had.

  Trev had written a letter to someone and it fell out of his pocket. A letter he probably wanted to send, but didn’t for the reasons he listed in the letter itself.

  “Hey, Sera, you coming to work or what?”

  It was my manager, Tim.

  A tall, pencil-necked looking guy with a pretend mustache who forever walked around with a clipboard. He went to college here, worked at the bar, and ended up graduating and staying there to work his way up through to management. In his eyes he was so cool, but reality was a cruel thing.

  I tucked the letter away and walked back into the bar, Tim holding the door open as though he didn’t trust me to actually go back to work.

  Believe me, I went back to work.

  My shift didn’t end until two in the morning. And it took us until two-thirty to get the place cleared out. I stood at the bar and counted the money I’d made. I slipped a ten dollar bill off to the side. I stared at it for a few seconds.

  My phone buzzed and I checked it.

  how was the night? u busy now?

  That text used to make me shiver. That text used to make me look around the bar and blush a little, knowing I was doing something a little wrong.

  I ignored the text and opened a new one.

  In my heart, I could justify this easily. I’d text Trev, telling him I had his money. He wouldn’t respond, which would then make it easier to text Max. I knew how messed up it sounded, but it was a sense of comfort still. Stupid comfort, but letting my guard down too much wasn’t a choice.

  I texted Trev that I had his ten dollars and to let me know when he wanted it.

  Maybe he’d see it in the morning and text me back, but I’d be sleeping or getting ready for class or something. I hated that my mind tried to play things out so far in advance. Being worried about being hurt and hurting yourself at the same time was a vicious cycle to be in. And breaking it…

  My phone buzzed against the bar.

  It wasn’t Max again. He wouldn’t do that. It was always a one text and done kind of thing with him. Which was good.

  This text was from…

  “Trev,” I whispered.

  I felt my cheeks burn hot. I felt other places burn hot, too.

  I asked him when he wanted the money.

  His text was one word.

  NOW

  Chapter 9

  Trev

  I had gotten home a little after midnight and was just hanging around. Alone. I had plenty of friends in life, but sometimes being alone was the only time I felt okay. The last thing I expected was for my phone to get a text from Sera. Two-thirty in the morning and she was texting about the ten bucks I told her she owed me. I actually laughed hard when I saw it. I knew what it was. She was texting me late, hoping I was asleep. So she could say that she did text. How fucking stupid was that? Talk about some high school games, huh? Yet I hurried to send a message right back. Like a damn fool.

  There were plenty of women around me. In college or not, plenty of women who had something that resembled a normal life and something to offer in an actual relationship. But there I was, telling Sera where I lived because I couldn’t get her out of my head.

  She got there a few minutes past three in the morning and I wasn’t sure whether to offer her a beer or a cup of coffee. I guess that depended on her reason for being there.

  I stood at the door, waiting for her to make her move.

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Don’t be. I’m always awake at three in the morning.”

  “So I woke you up?”

  “Yup. I was in the middle of my beauty sleep. I need it.”

  Sera scoffed and looked down. “You’re not wearing any socks.”

  I looked down. “Yeah? It’s my apartment. I can do what I want. You’re lucky it’s not Sunday.”

  “What’s Sunday?”

  “Naked day.”

  “Oh.”

  Her cheeks turned red.

  I smiled. “You want to come in or what?”

  “Yeah,” Sera said and stepped forward. “Oh, before I forget…” She reached into her pocket. “Here.”

  I looked at the ten dollar bill. “So you really came all the way here to give me this?”

  “I don’t like being in debt.”

  I took the money and slipped it into my back pocket. “Right. Can I get you a drink or something? Water? Beer? Soda? Coffee?”

  “No,” Sera said. She looked as nervous as anything. “I, uh…”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re going to play a game, Sera.”

  “A game?”

  “Yeah. It’s called… when you’re in Trev’s apartment, you act normal.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “You’re so jittery right now, I feel like you’re going to tell me you killed someone.”

  She laughed. “What? No. Okay. Truth. Um. Well… when you took the money from me the first time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You put it in your pocket, and when you took your hand out, something fell out.”

  “Okay…”

  “It was a note.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “A piece of paper. A note. It fell to the ground.”

  I looked over my shoulder. I shut my eyes for a second. I had stuck a damn note in my pocket a while ago. I would read it from time to time, wondering if I should send it. Sending it would change the course of a lot of lives though.

  “I’m sorry,” Sera said.

  I looked at her. “Sorry for what?”

  “I read it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You read it?”

  “I didn’t… I mean… I just read it tonight. Only… oh, shit.”

  “So you found something personal of mine and read it. Yet you act all nervous and worried around me. You get a text message and run from me. You come to me when you need a favor. Right.”

  “It’s not like that, Trev,” she said. “I swear. I just… I feel bad. But I sort of get it.”

  Sera touched my arm. I looked down at her hand. I held her wrist gently, and I stepped toward her. I put her hand to my chest.

  “You sort of get it? How?”

  “I think you lost someone,” she whispered. “I lost someone too, Trev.”

  I gritted my teeth. She’d done something really fucking stupid here.

  I considered my options.

  Sera blinked fast.

  “So you think you’re as messed up as me, huh?” I asked.

  “I promise it,” she said.

  “So you showed up… you gave me the money. You confessed you stole something from me. Are you done here yet?”

  “I don’t want to go home,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Maybe you should call your boyfriend.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, Trev.”

  “Well, someone sure got your attention that night you were sitting in my truck.”

  She shook her head. “Trev… please…”

  “It’s only fair, right? You know something about me now.”

  “I don’t know anything. I didn’t finish the letter. I stopped. I don’t even know who it’s written to.”

  Why the hell hadn’t I just opened the door and told her to leave yet?

  I let a few seconds pass and I finally did just that.

 
I opened the door. “Look. You kept your word. Thanks for that.”

  “Okay,” Sera said. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Trev.”

  “Nothing happened. I got kicked out of a memorial party for my stepbrother. You refused to go inside. We talked. You bailed. Your car needed work. I helped. You found a note that you don’t understand. Simple as that.”

  “Simple as that,” she said.

  She backed away and stepped out into the hallway.

  At the last possible second, I made a move and reached for her. My hand caught her hand, pulling at her.

  I felt my lip curl like I was an animal about to attack.

  “Just how messed up, Sera?” I whispered. “How wrong?”

  “Me?” she whispered back.

  I nodded.

  “Enough that me leaving is the right thing to do,” she whispered.

  I gritted my teeth. I swallowed hard.

  “You’re lucky, Sera.”

  “How so?”

  “I rarely do the right thing,” I said.

  I let her go and stepped back into my apartment… but I didn’t slam the door on her.

  * * *

  She sat across from me at the small dining room table. We each had a beer. It was so goddamn late… or early… depending on how you looked at it. By then, my eyes were heavy and all I wanted was some damn sleep. But I sat there and wondered what I was supposed to do with Sera.

  After a few minutes of silence, she reached for her pocket and took out the letter. She placed it on the table and slid it toward me.

  “Here,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t read the entire thing.”

  I quickly reached for her hand. “Why did you read it?”

  “What?”

  “Why did you read it, sweetheart?”

  There was that word again.

  “I don’t know why.”

  “That’s a lie, Sera.”

  I had her feeling uncomfortable and that was fine by me. Sorry. But not really.

  “I was curious about you.”

  “What’s so curious?” I asked.

  “The way you are. You didn’t go to college.”