“No.”
“Don’t go.” He peppers tiny kisses across my lips. “I can fix this.” Kiss. “Please, just give me a chance to fix this.” Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Each press of his lips feels like a tiny sting. A painful reminder of what we lost.
I shake my head. Tears roll down both of our cheeks. I gave Noah everything and he spoon fed me lies dressed up as love. I need to get out of here. I can’t be around these boys who both claim to love me so much, but neither of them loved me enough to be honest. “I have to love myself for once, Noah. I deserve better.”
“Truly,” he croaks. “So, that’s it? It’s over? After everything, you’re just going to throw it all away? Erase everything that happened on the road because of one mistake?”
“I thought I could handle the monster. I really did.” I rest my forehead on his chest. “I like the fucked-up shit we do. I like the bite of pain. I like the fight. And it’s crazy that I could trust you in that way after the treehouse. It’s fucked up, but I fell in love with you and you became the root cause of my happy and my sad. But I can’t keep bending myself for you Tedesco boys. For once, I want someone to bend for me. You need to decide if you’re the boy in the treehouse who haunts my dreams or the man I fell in love with on the road. You don’t get to be both...not anymore.” I take one last look at the boy who I gave my heart to and suck in a fortifying breath. “Good luck next year.”
I leave the hoodie and his room, forever. There’s a loud crash behind me and I know he’s up there self-destructing. Constance is still at the bottom of the stairs. “Please don’t let him hurt himself. He’s supposed to report to camp tomorrow,” I tell her on my way out the door.
As promised, Devin is waiting in his mom’s beat up old car. I slide in and buckle my seatbelt, and he peels out of the driveway.
“Five thousand dollars is all I’m worth to you?” I can’t help myself. I spit the words out the second we’re off Noah’s property. Anger and heartache and resentment simmer low in my belly. He threw me to the lions for five fucking grand.
Devin’s head tilts left, then right. “I don’t have a rich stepdad like Noah, or a doctor dad like you. I’m stuck here, Truly. Taking classes at Newton Community College was my best shot, and because my mom was too drunk to fill out the loan paperwork, I couldn’t even fucking afford that.”
“You could have told me,” I cry. “You could have talked to me. I would have understood. Instead, you just left me, in the cruelest way.”
“He said to make it believable or else he wouldn’t give me the money. Goddamnit!” Devin punches the steering wheel. “I swear I didn’t know what else to do.”
I sit back in my seat. There’s no point in arguing now. I just want to go home. I just need to make it home.
“Truly, I’m sorry. I’ll give the money back. I didn’t...I should have never accepted it.”
I stop and hold my hand up. “Don’t. Look, I get it; five thousand is a lot of money, especially when you don’t have any, but I’m fucking pissed at you for not telling me. For letting me make a fool of myself with him all summer.”
“You blocked me.”
“And yet, you still found ways to contact me,” I bite back. Trees whiz by as we move closer to the heart of town. I twist the gold band around my thumb repeatedly as I count down the minutes until we make it to my house.
“What can I do?” Devin asks.
Ten minutes.
“Nothing.”
Silence stretches on.
Nine minutes.
Eight minutes.
Seven Minutes.
“Can we just go to the park and talk? Please.”
“Devin.” I exhale.
Six minutes.
“He wanted to live with us. He begged me to talk to Dad. He told me about Richard. Told me he needed to get out of there.” Devin changes lanes and I hold my breath, afraid if I speak, he’ll stop talking. “I’d always been jealous of Noah. He had everything. He was good at basketball. I was convinced he was Dad’s favorite. I thought if he lived with us, that I’d lose them both. So, I told him no. I told him I didn’t want him there. That we couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. I told him if he moved in with us, I’d hate him. That I’d never talk to him again. And then Dad killed himself, and Noah blamed me for him not getting to spend those last moments with him.”
“You were ten,” I tell him. “You couldn’t have known what was about to happen.”
“I know that now, but back then, it was easy to hate him. It was easy for him to hate me. So, we just kind of settled into that routine. We were both mad at the whole world. Then, somewhere along the way, it was easier to hate each other.”
Three Minutes.
“Can’t we just go back,” he implores, turning onto my street. “Back to how it was before graduation?”
“You know we can’t go back.”
“Why?”
“Because I fucked your brother,” I yell, as the car rolls through my neighborhood. The harsh truth hangs thick in the air like a fog. “And as much as I hate him right now, I’m…”
“Still in love with him.” The pain in his voice is palpable.
The car stops in front of my house, but I don’t make a move to get out. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Devin sucks his bottom lip into his mouth.
I suck in a shaky breath. “You mean the world to me. What we had, it saved me, and I will forever be grateful for your presence in my life. But with Noah, I had the kind of love my parents had, that Jamal and Melody Parker kind of love. I can’t just pretend like it never happened, and deep down, you know that you can’t either.”
“So, I guess this is goodbye?”
I glance up at my house. “I guess it is.”
Three Months Later
“Let’s go out!” Tracy, my roommate, squeals. She jumps up from her bed, tossing a few strands of long, dark hair over her shoulder. She comes over to where I’m sitting at my desk and thrusts her phone in my face. “They’re having a tailgate party at the SkyZone. Two for one apps and they’re playing the game on all screens.”
I roll my eyes, ignoring the squeeze in my chest at her mention of the game. It’s been three months since school started. Three months since my break-up with Noah, three months of going through the motions, pretending to be like all the other happy freshmen on campus who are experiencing the taste of freedom for the first time. Only college isn’t my first taste; my road trip was. In those three weeks, I fell in love with a monster, dressed up as everything I thought I wanted. I should have known it was too good to be true. You don’t live happily ever after with the monster hiding in the dark. I guess I should count myself lucky that I got out mostly unscathed.
“I have to finish this paper,” I tell her, pointing to the screen. The cursor blinks, taunting me. I’ve written and rewritten the same sentence no less than twenty times. A night out sounds amazing, but the end of the semester is rapidly approaching, and although I’m doing well enough in all my classes, I can’t afford to bomb the final few assignments. Also, the last place I want to be tonight is at the SkyZone eating wings and listening to people gush over Noah’s jump shot.
“The paper isn’t due until Monday,” she says, licking her plump bottom lip. She pops her hip, resting it on the edge of the desk. “I promise you’ll have all weekend to be a nerd, just come out with me.”
“Since when do you care about basketball?” I stare at the girl I’ve shared a tiny room with for the past three months. Her skin is just a shade lighter than mine, and her hairstyles change almost weekly. She talks with a thick southern accent and has a Drake obsession that borders on stalking. Never once have I heard her talk about organized sports.
“Since I overheard Marcus, from my Lit class, saying that since he couldn’t go to the game, he was going to watch at the SkyZone. The half-priced apps are just the cherry on top.”
“Ahh,” I say as realization dawns on me. Marcus is Tracy’s current obsession. She gets
to Lit fifteen minutes early every day so she can wait by the door and “bump into” him before class starts. I munch on my bottom lip. My college experience has been relatively Noah free. He called me every day from camp, but I never answered. Eventually, I blocked his number, but I worried once I got to Jameson, he’d find me and force me to be his girlfriend again. To my surprise, he didn’t. I don’t know what hurts worse, breaking up with him or the fact that he just let me.
I spent the first month thinking I’d run into him around campus. I spotted him a couple of times in the dining hall. Since then, I’ve timed all my meals carefully and stick to the same routes to and from classes. I don’t go to many parties, or extracurriculars, or hang out at any of the places that are popular with the Jameson crowd.
“Come on, Tru,” Tracy whines. “It’s one night. I don’t want you to spend freshman year locked in this room, crying over a stupid boy.”
I gave Tracy the cliff notes version of my relationship, leaving out that my evil ex is the only freshman starter on the Jameson Men’s Basketball team.
There’s no chance of running into Noah at the SkyZone tonight since he’s playing in the game we’re going there to watch. And I guess it would be nice to spend a Friday night doing something other than FaceTiming with a drunk Becca while she parties at NYU. “Fine,” I huff, running my fingers through my hair. The braids came out just before I left for school, but I kept the purple. Not for Devin or Noah, but for me. “Give me thirty minutes.”
“Yes!” Tracy jumps up and down. “Tonight is going to be epic.”
The SkyZone is a sports bar downtown. It isn’t officially a part of the Jameson campus, but it’s where students hang out because the food is cheap, and they don’t check IDs too closely.
The place is packed. It takes us thirty minutes to get a table. It’s like half the campus came here tonight to watch the game. The season only just began, but after a couple of games, it was clear that what was supposed to be a transitional year for the team will be anything but.
Per the drunk guys talking loudly at the table next to ours, three starters graduated last year, leaving them debating the team’s chances of making it to the playoffs. “They don’t have a bench,” drunk dude number one yells.
“Have you seen that kid Tedesco? They don’t need a bench. So long as he stays healthy and Miller steps up and takes on that leadership role, I don’t think many teams can stop them,” Drunk guy number two says.
As if on cue, the entire bar erupts into applause, and I turn to the screen as they replay Noah sinking a three-point shot. The camera returns to the game and the players are running down the court. Noah is all over the guy he’s defending as the clock winds down. The guy fakes left, but Noah doesn’t fall for it. He steals the ball and races down the court, slamming the ball into the net, giving Jameson a five-point lead. The entire room is on their feet as the cameraman focuses on Noah. His gaze is intense. The game is all but won, but his eyes don’t leave the man he’s guarding. The buzzer sounds. Game over. Jameson for the win.
My heart drops to my stomach. I don’t know why I thought I could do this. “Okay, I’m gonna head back to the room.” I toss my napkin down on the table.
“What? You can’t leave now? The game just ended. Literally, the night is only beginning.”
I glance around the cramped space, watching the once tense spectators cheer and chug beers. She’s right, the party is only just beginning, but seeing Noah, even if only on the TV screen, really killed any shred of enthusiasm for spending the night out.
“I had an idea for my paper, and I want to get it down before I lose it.”
“Come on, Tru, you have all weekend to finish your homework. Have one drink,” she says, and begrudgingly, I agree.
One drink turns to two. After the second, I’m somehow dragged to a frat party. “That’s it,” I say over the music. “I’m heading back.”
“Are you sure?” Tracy sings the words to the tune of the song that’s blasting through the speakers.
“Yes.” I drop my arms on her shoulders and lean into her ear. “I can’t hang.”
The entire campus is buzzing with the win tonight, but I can’t seem to find my school spirit. I make my way through the cool night air and up to my mostly quiet floor. Rounding the corner to my room, I spot a figure sitting on the floor, the hood of his Jameson hoodie pulled up over his head, and one long leg stretched out in front of him.
My body burns with familiarity. I don’t need to see his face to know who it is. “How did you know where I live?” I ask coming to a stop in front of him.
“I know everything about you, Truly.” He looks up at me, his mouth tipped up in a grin. Everything in me lights up at having his eyes on me. I hadn’t realized how much I missed basking in his attention, then reality crashes down around me as I remember what he did.
“You have to go. My roommate will be back soon.” I unlock my door and push my way inside. I’m too drunk to engage with Noah tonight, but he’s too fast.
He slides in behind me, locking us inside. “I doubt it. The entire campus is celebrating.”
“Why aren’t you?” I spit, kicking off my shoes and tossing my keys on the desk. “You’re their king now.”
His eyes darken. “I am celebrating.”
Unease and excitement crisscross their way down my spine. Noah is the most sought-after person on campus right now and he’s here with me.
The thought shouldn’t make me as happy as it does. It’s been months. Our entire relationship was based on a lie, yet, he’s here, and I’m drunk enough to admit to myself that I’m happy to see him.
His legs eat up the distance between us. His hands find my hips and my body sparks with recognition from his touch. “I tried to leave you alone, Tru. I tried to let you go. But tonight, when the whole school was cheering for me, yours was the only face I wanted to see. And you weren’t there.”
“That’s because I am not yours anymore.”
“Tell that to your pussy,” he spits, cupping me between the legs. “Tell it to your heart,” he adds a little softer before his mouth lands on mine. His kiss sears me. It’s like he’s simultaneously waking my body up from hibernation and obliterating my self-preservation. I want this. I want him. Noah Tedesco. The most popular boy on campus. From the outside, he’s the golden boy, but I know the real him. The dark and the dirty and the horrific. I know what keeps him up at night. I know what motivates him. I am intimately aware of the parts that don’t shine. Of the parts that will be glossed over or altogether retracted from the story of his life. That knowledge bonds us in some ways, and it damns us in others.
“What do you care about my heart?” I lift my chin in defiance. I had been willing to forgive. To look past his fucked-upness. But he had a score to settle with his brother. It’s funny how we see love in our heads. How hard we wish and pray for it to manifest itself in an easy package. Devin and I made sense. Both broken—but not beyond repair—both grieving, both doing our best to honor our dead loved ones. He’s the boy I should lay awake thinking about. Not Noah. Not the monster whose aim was to hurt and to take and to break.
“Your heart is the only thing I care about,” he says, wrapping his hands around my neck. He walks me backwards toward my twin bed. “The. Only. Fucking. Thing.” He punctuates each word with a squeeze, constricting and loosening.
His mouth lands on mine and before I realize what’s happening, my shirt is over my head, and he pops open the button on my jeans. “Noah.” I moan into his lips. “We shouldn’t.” This is wrong. He shouldn’t be here, and I definitely shouldn’t let him fuck me, but the alcohol swirling in my brain and his heat and scent, a scent that I’ve missed these last three months, are working overtime to convince me that this is a good idea.
“We should,” he argues, dipping his thumbs into the sides of my jeans and panties as he drags them both down my legs. Noah peels his hoodie and t-shirt off in one swoop. His joggers and boxers are next, and he kneels on the bed,
the thick head of his cock lined up with my entrance.
“Should we use a condom?” I breathe the words out in a rush. Not no or stop. Should we use a condom? God, what’s wrong with me? Noah quirks a brow. “I’m still on the pill, but like STDs?” I can practically hear Daddy’s lecture about unprotected sex in my head.
“I had better be the only motherfucker who has ever been here.” Noah slaps my pussy with the head of his cock.
“You haven’t been here in three months,” I challenge. “And how do I know one of the basketball groupies hasn’t given you herpes or worse from all the butt sex?” I narrow my eyes at his presumption, like I’m supposed to be celibate forever, no matter that it’s the truth.
He chuckles a little, pressing the tip of his dick inside of me. “No groupies. No butt sex or any other kinds of sex for that matter.”
“For three months?” I arch my brow skeptically. When Noah and I were together, the only time we didn’t have sex was when I was on my period, and that was only because I was too grossed out by the thought of it. He didn’t care either way.
“No one since you.” His whiskey eyes are clear as he stares down at me.
I sigh in relief, welcoming him deeper inside of me. “No groupies for me either, unless you count the vibrator I got on a drunken excursion to the sex shop with my roommate.”
“You have a vibrator?” He pauses with his dick still just halfway inside of me.
I instantly regret letting that piece of information slip. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to go all he-man, your orgasms belong to me, on me.”
“I prefer you fucking a rubber dick than some other asshole.” He kisses my nose then jumps up. “Where is it?”
“Top drawer on the left,” I groan, wondering what the hell happened to me getting laid.
Noah finds the little purple wand and grins, clicking it on and off. He flips it in his hand and walks back over to me. “Show me how you use it.”
Truly Page 24