A little voice whispered in my ear, something I had been so afraid to admit.
I was falling for her. Hard.
Not just the way a guy falls for a girl, but the sick, obsessive way an addict craves a fix. The more I tried to distance myself, the worse it got. I could smell her on my skin after every hug, every accidental brush of her fingers against mine. Her sadness had a gravity, and I orbited it, helpless.
This town didn’t make it any easier. Pathosbury had a way of peeling your layers back to the rawest parts, like it was the only thing it knew how to do. I’d only been back a day, and already I’d seen three people from high school I never wanted to see again. The kid I fought in seventh grade. The girl who I fucked behind the bar.
I went to the first bar I could find, a cinderblock dive with a neon Bud Light sign and a jukebox that hadn’t worked since the recession. I ordered a whiskey, straight, and the guy behind the counter poured it like he was doling out cough syrup.
I slammed it, let the burn uncoil in my stomach, then signaled for another. A TV flickered above the bar, some cable news channel screaming about a war nobody wanted to fight.
It was a sick joke. Me, the human trainwreck, the guy whose whole personality was built on pushing people away, suddenly realizing that the only thing I wanted to do was to hold Amelia so close she’d have to punch me to get free.
I could still picture how she looked on her knees at the grave, her hair tangled and her face wet, her hands shaking as if the world had finally won. When I’d wrapped my arms around her, it felt like bracing against a tidal wave, one that was always building, always threatening, and now it was here, and I didn’t drown.
“Caiden? Is that you?”
A voice rang out through the near emptiness of the bar. I looked towards the voice to see a man with black hair walking out of the bathroom.
It didn’t take long for me to register who he was.
“Dante?” I whispered as if I had seen a ghost.
Dante, my ex best friend, stood in front of me with a smile on his face as if we didn’t have a terrible falling out in high school.
He wore a faded shirt over a body that had thickened with muscle. His forearms, neck, and shoulders, but his face was the same. Bright-eyed and intrigued.
For a second, I thought he’d come over to swing or at least get his words in before the bartender threw us both out. Instead, he clapped me on the back and slid onto the stool next to mine, like we’d just seen each other last week instead of seven years ago.
“Jesus, Baxter,” he grinned, “I thought you were in jail or dead.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Not for lack of trying.”
The bartender, sensing the drama, sidled over and set up a second glass. Dante lifted it, tapped it to mine. “To not being dead, then.”
“To being back in Pathosbury,” I said, and we both drank, though we never broke eye contact.
For a minute, it was almost like nothing had changed. The jukebox fizzled with a busted cassette, and the air around us thickened with smoke and the old, sweet stink of spilled beer. I could almost pretend we weren’t both ghosts, haunting the same bar out of habit because it was all we knew.
Dante leaned back, his gaze sliding over me. “You look good,” he said, but his mouth twisted like the words were sour. “What are you doing here?”
I wondered if I should tell the truth or lie like the liar that I was. A sour taste of jealousy caused the words to hesitate in my mouth. If he knew I was here with Amelia, he might want to see her, to reconnect with her.
She was mine.
He had his chance.
Ultimately, I told the truth, because this was a small town and I knew news would spread about Amelia and I being here together. Especially since the scene she made at her mother’s funeral.
“I’m here with Amelia. Her mom, Judy, died, and she needed somebody with her.” I kept my words short and swift.
He raised an eyebrow, and I clenched the glass a little too tightly when I saw the hint of interest in his eyes.
“I heard about Judy. I wasn’t sure if Amelia would come. I know how bad their relationship was. In fact, before Amelia left, we saw each other again, and she said she hoped that her mother would die alone with her mistakes.” Dante spoke as if he knew Amelia inside and out.
“You saw Amelia before she left?” I asked through gritted teeth.
His cheeks turned to a faint red as he nervously grinned. “Yeah. We hooked up a second time. Couldn’t resist it, man, I liked her a lot back then.”
