Page 76 of Before You Fell

“What? That word pisses you off now?” Cruz says. “Replaceable? That is the one that gets you?”

I glare at him. “Back the fuck off.”

“No,” Jett says, his voice low. “She gave you everything, and you still fucked her, then went looking for someone else. What the fuck did you think that would do to her, asshole?”

The words hit so hard that they turn the room white.

“Careful,” I snap.

Jett’s eyes do not leave mine. “Why? You were never fucking careful with her.”

My jaw tightens as he keeps talking.

“With the one person in this whole fucked-up circus who kept showing up for you, even as you acted like being wanted made you untouchable.”

I shove against him. “Shut your fucking mouth.”

“No,” Jett says. “You shut yours for once.”

I shut my mouth because what he says has some truth to it. I’ve known it for years. I’ve watched Willow stand by my side, seen her give and give while I took, until taking became as natural as breathing.

And I have no idea what the fuck to do with that.

So I cross the room, grab my jacket, and walk out, ignoring Damon shouting at me to get the fuck in here.

No one follows me.

The drive to Willow’s parents’ house takes two hours.

Two fucking hours in a rental car with my hands locked around the wheel and my phone sitting uselessly on the passenger seat.

I haven’t been back here in years. Not to see my parents. Not to sit across from my father as he looks at everything I have achieved and still finds a way to make it seem insignificant. Or to watch my mother sit there, saying nothing, the same way she said nothing when I was a kid.

That’s why I spent more time at Willow’s house than at my own. Her place always seemed more breathable.

I pull up out front and park badly. Willow’s car is parked across the front lawn, which tells me she is here.

My hands remain on the wheel.

For once, I have no speech ready and no fucking idea what I’m going to say.

This kind of shit has never been where I shine. Hand me a stage, a microphone, and a crowd yelling my name, and I know who to become.

Put me outside Willow’s house, with everything I broke sitting behind that front door, and I’m just an asshole in a rental car with nothing useful in my mouth.

The front path feels longer than it should. Every step gives me another second to figure out what the fuck I am going to say and every second gives me nothing.

By the time I reach the door, I have neither a plan nor a decent excuse dressed up as honesty. Just the need to get to her, see her, make her listen, and make her understand that what she saw was not what it looked like, even though it was exactly what it looked like.

I knock once and Graham opens the door.

Willow’s dad has always had the kind of face that makes bullshit crawl back down your throat before it can embarrass you.

He isn’t big. He doesn’t need to be. Graham just stands there, steady and hard-eyed, looking at me as if he has been waiting years for me to show up on his porch with every awful thing I have done to his daughter hanging off of me.

“No,” he says. “Fuck no.”

He starts to close the door but I press my hand against it. “Graham, I need to talk to Willow.”