Page 134 of Always: A Legacy Novel

Any other time, and Cross would have laughed it off just to piss his sister off more. But he didn’t. What he wanted to do kind of scared the shit out of him. He wanted to put his fist through her door, and be done with it.

Yeah, damn.

He needed to go.

He needed to get the hell out of here.

Today. Now. Yesterday.

Cross should have already been gone because that was just his nature. He fucked off when he needed to reset or recharge, and he shouldn’t have thought he could do this differently.

“Cross, what are you doing?” Calisto asked from the bedroom door.

He didn’t answer; he just tossed jeans and shirts into a bag. A couple days’ worth, and a hoodie, too. The handgun from between his mattress and box spring went into the bag, too.

“I need to get out of here,” Cross said.

“You’ve got—”

Cross pushed past his step-father in the doorway, acting as though he didn’t hear his shout behind him. His Doc Martens beat against hardwood as he took the stairs three at a time. Like a bat out of hell, he just needed to get the hell out.

“What in the hell just happened upstairs?” Calisto demanded.

Cross didn’t stop or slow.

He didn’t speak.

“Cross!”

“What’s wrong?” he heard his mother call down.

Cross was already heading for the front door, and grabbing his vehicle keys out of the glass bowl on the shelf as he passed it by.

“Just give me a second, Emma,” Calisto called back.

Shit, Cross wanted to be what his parents needed, and what they kept hoping for. He wanted to be able to show he listened when his step-father spoke, even if Calisto didn’t think so all that much. He wanted to settle. He wanted the balance his step-father talked about.

He couldn’t be those things or what they needed. He couldn’t because he didn’t have it. He never had.

He was restless, unsteady, unsettled, and bored far too often. He was difficult, different, tired, and here. Always here, or there, or somewhere. He had to go, go, go, and move. He had an edginess in his blood, pumping from his heart, because relaxing only came easy when it came with someone he no longer had. He was dumb to think this would be different.

Cross didn’t know how to explain that, though. It was easier to just go because that was what felt good. Wild, they called him. They had said that since he was little. They were right, but they were wrong, too. He couldn’t be settled, or balanced, or anything else when he had never really been those things to begin with.

“Cross,” his step-father shouted out the front door. “Wait a minute, son.”

He was already slamming the driver’s door of his Rover, and lighting the ignition.

What the fuck was he supposed to say?

Shit happened.

It’s messed up.

I don’t want to feel like this.

Being friends is a lie.

None of those explained anything well enough, Cross knew. Not without more words, and more time being spent trying to just breathe.