EVERYTHING WRONG WITH US_a novel by:

by Jaxson Kidman

  I stared into the distance to where I had last seen his truck.

  I smiled.

  A shower. Then go to Trev’s place.

  Give him everything he wanted to know about me.

  Then maybe I could get everything I want to know of his…

  * * *

  Sometimes time had an odd way of just easing by, like the current of a river. You can never stop it and reverse it, but rather just dip your toes in and feel that it was moving. The only reason I looked at the calendar on the fridge was to figure out my work schedule and what classes I had upcoming. Truthfully, I was trying to see the chances of running into Max right on campus. The chances were obviously huge because that’s where he worked.

  But it was the date. The actual date. That’s what hit me. It hit me before I took a shower. The shower provided a shield to hide my tears as I cried. My hands against the shower tiles, shaking, remembering that day. Remembering how I came home, thinking everything was as normal as it had been. A small piece of me waiting for the news that everything was going to be okay. That she was going to be coming home soon and life would continue forward. Only that day… my mother was sitting on the couch, a cup of coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other. She’d decided a year prior to quit smoking and then compromised that she would only smoke outside the house. So to see her like that meant something was happening. Something very bad was happening. Something so very bad…

  I choked on the tears and choked on the shower water.

  “I miss you…”

  * * *

  Dear YOU,

  So I guess this is where I’m supposed to forget about you. Right? Because I can never see you again. I will never see you again. I don’t care about all that religious stuff and what happens later. In my mind, I’m far too young to think like that. Then again, you’re far too young and it happened to you. So what am I supposed to believe now? Am I supposed to live the rest of my life knowing that something terrible could happen without notice? I just don’t get it. And what makes it worse is that if I don’t get something, you’re the one I go to. You always find a way to make things make sense. You always have the right words to say to me. At the very least you have some kind of dumb joke that will make me smile.

  Now there’s silence.

  That’s it. Silence.

  My mother said I don’t have to go school. Oh, jeez, that’s great. I haven’t seen my best friend in how long, and now all of a sudden I don’t have to go to school? Like that’s some kind of trade off? Oh, and I don’t have to go back until I’m ready. And if I’m never ready again, then I can homeschool. Like, what does that mean? And my mother is smoking in the house again and it smells bad. I want to climb out of the window and slide down the roof and jump. Then run to your house and sneak inside and just hang out and talk. Make popcorn and talk about boys. Try to see if there’s anything naughty on the channels that we’re not supposed to watch after midnight.

  But it’s all silence. It’s all so quiet. There’s nothing. Except the noise in my head. My heart racing. My mouth is dry. I want to rip every poster off my wall. I want to scream as loud and as long as I can until I pass out. I’m supposed to eat now? I’m supposed to sleep at some point? What’s the point of this now? The only person in the world who could make me feel better is you. Your voice. Your words. Everything about you.

  I’m going to have to face your parents. I’m going to have to face your room. I’m going to have to face school. And people. And questions. And stupid sad eyes. And all the bitches and bullies are going to suddenly give a crap about me. About you. I know this because it’s been happening. I’m suddenly a different person at school. Everyone wants to talk to me about you. Everyone wants the gossip. They don’t care. They just want the gossip. And this is going to be big gossip.

  I just realized something. All the letters I wrote to you before, I was able to give to someone to give to you. But this one… you can’t get it. There is literally no possible way you’ll ever read this letter. I’m writing to nothing and to nobody. I’m putting stupid words on a stupid piece of paper.

  OMG… you’re gone. You’re really gone.

  Love,

  Serafina

  Chapter 16

  Trev

  I pulled at the zipper on my bag that I used for high school and looked at all the pieces of paper inside. If anyone I used to hang with knew about these letters, I would have taken hell for a long time for it. Then again, if anyone said a word to me about the letters I would have punched them right in the damn mouth.

  I stuck my hand into the bag and fished around until I felt something at the bottom. A small notebook with really big wire circles. It had a black front and when I opened it, the first page was a picture. The picture took my breath away. The pages after the picture took my heart, because that’s what it was. My heart. Everything I had to write and get off my chest at a time in my life when nothing made sense.

  Not that things got much better though. I had to keep a lot of stuff close to my chest, including all the letters in the bag.

  I hadn’t touched the bag in a long time. More than a year, probably closer to three years. I should have chucked the thing into the river or just burned it when I had the chance. But that would be an admittance to letting things go, and something about me just didn’t want to let things go. But now look at the road I was on. Turning a wrench to pay the bills. Taking the heat for my stepbrother’s death. Nobody understanding that I damn near fought him to get the keys off him. And then, of course, the fact that I was sleeping with his fiancée. What did that make me? Hell, probably everything everyone already thought. So I was actually living up to expectations.

  I dropped the notebook back into the bag and zipped it up. I threw it into the dark corner of my closet and slammed the door.

  That’s exactly why Sera intrigued me so much. Because she had obviously written letters to someone that mattered to her and never sent them. Just like I did. Normally, when I had someone coming over to hang out, the whole hang out thing was implied as something else. But when I heard the soft knock on the door, I swallowed hard, knowing this was something totally different.

  It was like Sera had found the one frayed string to my heart, and not only tugged it, but playfully ran with it like a curious puppy. Except what she didn’t understand was that at the end of that string… my heart… was a hidden beast.

  I opened the door and she stood there with damp hair, no makeup on, in a hoodie and jeans. She looked tired. She looked sad. Right then I realized just how much shorter she was than me. I stood there and filled the doorway to my apartment, as Sera looked up at me with eyes that I knew could unravel what was left of my heart. And for some reason, I was completely okay with that.

  I stepped back and grinned. “How was your shower?”

  “Wonderful,” Sera said.

  She took a step forward and I stopped her.

  “Hey. Are you okay?”

  She blinked fast. Then she shook her head. “Not really, Trev.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She walked by me and I shut the door. I locked it and turned to watch her walk through my apartment as though she lived there. She went right for the kitchen to get herself a drink. I went to the dining room table and stopped, standing there with my hands folded as she grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the counter.

  “Glass?” she asked.

  “That’s where we’re heading?”

  “I’m already there.”

  She twisted the cap off and took a drink. A big enough drink that I raised an eyebrow.

  Interesting.

  I pushed from the table and got to her before she could drink again. My hand grabbed the bottle and I peeled it away from her.

  “Hey. What’s going on?”

  “Just a bad day.”

  “I saw you, what, an hour ago?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “What happened in that hour?”


  “Bad water pressure,” Sera said.

  I laughed. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  I put the whiskey bottle to my lips and paused. Her lips had just been on the bottle. It was almost like kissing her. But not even close. I took a drink and felt the fire race down my throat and into my stomach.

  I put the cap back on and Sera reached for the bottle.

  “No way,” I said. “You’re not coming here to get dumb assed drunk and pass out.”

  “Then I’ll leave.”

  “Drunk? You really want to say that right now to me?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she snapped.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Bad enough I get blamed for one death. I don’t need to get blamed for yours too.”

  Sera paused. “They really blame you, Trev?”

  “Yeah. They do.”

  “Why?”

  I smiled. “So this is what you wanted? To come over here and dig into my secrets? So I could dig into yours?”

  “We both agreed that everything is wrong with us, right? So, why not?”

  I stepped back to the table and slid the whiskey bottle away.

  “Fine,” I said. “What do you want to know, Sera?”

  “Why do you get blamed for what happened with your stepbrother?”

  “Because he was the driver and I was the passenger.”

  “You were both drunk.”

  “I was supposed to drive,” I said.

  “But you got drunk instead?”

  “Sort of.”

  “How do you sort of get drunk?”

  “Tell me something about you,” I said. “Why do you want to know so much about me? About Heath? The real reason you didn’t want to sign that banner for Heath. The real reason you came into my truck. The real reason you took off after getting that text message.”

  Sera shook her head. “I asked you something first.”

  “So, why don’t we go fuck up for fuck up then? I tell you, you tell me.”

  “Fine,” Sera said with a half-smile.

  Fuck, she was beautiful.

  I grabbed the bottle of whiskey and looked left to right.

  There were two places to do this… the living room or the bedroom.

  I grinned.

  Gentleman or not, someone as beautiful as Sera belonged in one place in my apartment…

  * * *

  We were in the bedroom.

  Sitting on the floor.

  I had my back against the bed. Sera sat with her back against the nightstand. When she stuck her feet out, they touched the side of my left leg. That little subtle touch sent a fire through me that was far too dangerous for being in my bedroom with a bottle of whiskey.

  “I didn’t want to go to the party,” I said. “Heath and Matt begged me. We were sort of a trio together. Even though Heath and I hated each other.”

  “Did you two really hate each other?” Sera asked.

  “For the most part. And it was induced by those around us. We had no reason to not like each other. So there were moments when we were close. Like right before he started to drive. Heath, uh, he was engaged.”

  “Oh?”

  Engaged to the woman I’ve been sleeping with.

  “Yeah. But that didn’t make him faithful.”

  “Douche.”

  “Basically,” I said. “So, uh, that night. He was fooling around with some girl at a party. I flipped on him over it. I’d had a few drinks and was planning on sobering up. Matt got wasted and ended up sleeping on the back seat of his car. When I tore into Heath, it was the first time in his life that he decided to listen. Suddenly he wanted to go and see his fiancée. He promised to love her and never cheat on her again. We fought for the keys and I begged him to just let me sober up. Let me drink some water and wait a few hours.” I looked at the whiskey bottle as I played the night through my head again.

  A few seconds later, I felt Sera kick me.

  I looked over at her.

  “You wanted to know what happened in the hour we were apart,” she said. “I remembered what today meant.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Today is the day… I lost someone.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah,” Sera said. She leaned forward and took her turn with the whiskey bottle. It was her fourth turn at it. “Just someone that meant something to me.”

  “The letters you wanted me to read,” I said. “They were…”

  She nodded. “Yeah. They were meant for that someone I lost.”

  “When you say lost, sweetheart, what does that mean?”

  She touched the corners of her eyes. “Lost, Trev. Lost. Like, really lost.”

  “Got it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  We were in silence for a few seconds.

  Then I continued.

  “When Heath grabbed the keys again, he was starting to cry. He wanted to get to his fiancée and… I don’t know, sweetheart. It was like a different version of my stepbrother. My mind wasn’t exactly straight either, so I thought if we could just get home, he could fix things with her and everyone could be happy. That was my logic. It was wrong, Sera. So damn wrong. I thought I could sit there in the passenger seat and get him home. But I fell asleep. And I woke up to the feeling of the car jerking to the left. Heath was asleep too. And the car was already off the road.”

  I stopped there and caught the lump in my throat. I slowly exhaled. I had never gotten a chance to explain what had happened. In full detail. Matt never wanted to hear about it because he was just in shock all the time that he’d survived. All he remembered was getting drunk and waking up in the hospital. He thought he was there getting his stomach pumped from drinking too much, only to find out about the accident.

  There was silence again.

  I turned my head to look at Sera.

  I expected her to tell me more about this person she lost.

  What I didn’t expect was for her to bend her knees and lunge right for me.

  * * *

  Sera straddled me and my hands went right to her hips. I held her as she hovered over me just enough that her breasts were positioned right at my chin. I gritted my teeth for a second as I exhaled with a deep growl in my throat.

  “Serafina,” I said.

  “Shut up,” she whispered.

  She lowered herself down and rubbed her nose against my mine. She was fucking with me. Tempting me. Trying to keep playing this dangerous game we had going.

  I licked my lips and fought hard to push everything aside. All the secrets I had. All the secrets she had.

  I inched up and kissed her.

  It was just a little peck, more of a flirty kiss.

  But it was enough to set her off for good.

  She kissed me back, her mouth suddenly open, the tip of her tongue flicking against my lips. My left hand cut up the back of her shirt and felt her warm skin. My right hand moved up to between her shoulder blades and I pulled, making sure she was tight against me.

  The kiss was ferocious. Our mouths smashing together over and over, heads cutting left to right, the wet sloppy noise echoing through the bedroom.

  Her hands gripped the bed and I felt the slight thrust from her hips.

  I could have fucking exploded right there.

  I broke the kiss, turned my head, sucked in a breath.

  I looked at the whiskey bottle. I thought about what we were doing. We were about to do the same crap that Becca and I had been doing since Heath died. Fucking each other as a way to chase away pain.

  But was that so bad?

  Sera breathed heavily as I turned my head to face her again.

  She was right there, inches from me.

  I never show this kind of resistance when I wanted someone. But Sera was different. My head was twisted and I didn’t just want her to spend the night. I wanted her to spend the night and the morning. And maybe even beyond that.

  “I’ve been scattered
lately, Trev,” Sera said. “Not focused. Bouncing around. Confused with life. I want to blame you for that.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Ever since I met you that night. You took your hoodie off and your shirt came up… and I…”

  I smiled. “So this is all lust, huh? You saw me with no shirt for a split second and here we are how much later now?”

  “Shut up,” she said again. “Just take your fucking shirt off. Please.”

  I moved my hands away from her body and just sat there.

  She wanted it that badly… she could do it herself.

  And she did.

  I knew the second her hands began to claw at my t-shirt that I was in even deeper trouble with her.

  Sera threw my shirt over her shoulder and put her hands onto my shoulders.

  She gasped and rocked her hips against me. I was hard and there was no way she didn’t know that. My hands slowly touched her hips again, both hands easing under her shirt and finding comfort in her soft skin. She jumped at the touch of my hands and groaned when I squeezed.

  “The tattoo,” she whispered.

  “What about it?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s mine,” I said.

  “Does it have any meaning?”

  I had a tattoo that went from shoulder to shoulder, across my chest. It was a black tribal design with a bird twisted up in the pattern.

  “It’s my phoenix,” I whispered. “You know, always rising from the ashes, Sera. That’s what I do. That’s what you do too, right?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  She leaned down, but didn't kiss me. Instead, she kept going and didn’t stop until she kissed my chest. My teeth clenched tightly as I felt her kiss the black phoenix. Her lips kissed again and again. My hands moved up her body and I took advantage of the opportunity in front of me as I unclasped her bra. I eased around toward her chest and pushed Sera away from me. My hands moved over the swell of her breasts and she put her head back and groaned.