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He’s a long way from the hungry boy I met in a Dumpster when I was throwing out trash for my father near the strip mall at his friend’s bar. I shared my dinner and lunch with Isaiah for weeks. Then I convinced my uncle Mac to hire him for the car shop when Isaiah was a scrawny mess still in middle school. He bloomed from the pity of a boy into the man that won the girl he loves and makes bank working on custom cars.
One week in a hospital, a lot of time to reflect. Logan could have been killed because of me and I’m not okay with that. I’m nowhere near okay with that. The idea of him dying creates a black sludge in my veins and constricts my chest and my hand grabs for my throat because I feel like I can’t breathe.
Isaiah pulls on his lower earring, which means something’s eating him—like probably whatever was stuck up his ass that caused him to become all legit.
“Spit it out. Angst pisses me off.”
“Logan thinks he’s picking you up.”
“He does.” I turn to the small mirror over the sink. Should have asked Rachel for makeup. I’m not a cosmetics type of girl, but I look like the leftovers from a vampire feast.
Rachel.
The pain strikes fast and deep and I bend with the impact, holding on to the sides of the sink to stay upright. It’s that internal feeling like I’m falling. Off a cliff, from an airplane, into an abyss. “Have you told Rachel yet?”
“I did what you asked with Logan, but if you want to break Rachel’s heart, you’re going to have to do that.” Isaiah does that damn brooding thing.
I roll my eyes and face him again. “You’re the one who didn’t want me to become her friend. Their friend. If I remember correctly, you told me to back off of all of them—Rachel, West, Logan.”
“I told you to be careful. There’s a difference. I don’t have a problem with you being their friend, I have a problem with you being a drug dealer.”
“Because it makes me evil?”
“Because it makes you miserable,” he snaps and the bitter smirk that’s always on my face when Isaiah and I go head-to-head disappears.
“You think I like watching you die? And I’m not talking about seeing you recover from a bullet and you in pain. You’ve been bleeding out since you sold your first baggie. You think you know me?” He shrugs his shoulders. “You do, but I know you, too. You can pretend all you want that you’re a ghost, but I know what’s inside you. I know who you really are.”
I swallow the lump forming in my throat and I have to blow out air to find the girl who doesn’t care. “Thank you for setting up Logan for me. It’ll make it easier on him for the conversation to have come before what’s a
bout to happen than after.”
Months ago, I gave Isaiah explicit instructions that if my work life spilled over into my attempt at a personal life that he was to run off anyone who I had poisoned with my presence. Isaiah kept his promise, at least with Logan, and had a little chat with him in a bathroom downstairs.
“Don’t think it worked like you wanted. He’s determined to stay.”
My fingers flex as I recall how many times I woke up this week to Logan by my bed, holding my hand, his thumb caressing the sensitive spot right inside my palm. Tingles enter into my bloodstream just at the memory. The good type and I have no idea how to shut them off.
Hurting Logan will kill the good feelings. Hurting Logan will be like slicing up what’s left of my already shriveled soul. “He won’t feel that way after he figures out I’m gone and when you’ll tell him exactly who I left with.”
“That person be me?” Linus walks into the room and I swear the temperature drops fifty degrees into the negatives.
“Did your mother know she was giving birth to Satan’s spawn or was she shocked when you popped out?”
I once again gain that hint of a smile I often mistake as one. “Let’s go, Abby. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Feeling like someone is ripping all my flesh from my body, I cross the room, gather my things and tuck my bunny between my arm and my body. I stare at the empty chair as tears burn my eyes and my lower lip trembles. How do I say goodbye to my best friend?
“I need two minutes with her,” Isaiah says in this low tone that not many people argue with. When there’s no movement behind me, he becomes a drill sergeant. “Now.”
“Two minutes,” Linus says and then retreating footsteps.
I sniff and switch my gaze up to the ceiling, hating that the view is blurry.
“Don’t do this, Abby.” There’s a hitch in Isaiah’s voice. “You want to push Logan and West and even Rachel away, then do it, but don’t push me away.”
I inhale deeply and when I turn to look at him the smirk fails as the corners of my mouth tremble. “Who says this is about you?”
Isaiah angles toward me, his hand rubbing at the compass tattooed on his forearm. “Then you’re saying I’ll see you tomorrow? At the garage?”
