AllFreeNovel
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I have this feeling I haven’t had in a while—the feeling I don’t know where I’m going and what I’m doing.
I know the cure for it, though. As soon as I make sure the blonde is not in need of a trip to the ER, I’ll grab a bottle of tequila and settle down with a mission to erase all emotion and wipe out all memories.
Sometimes it even works.
“Hey, Jesse, whatcha doing?” Rafe lifts his fist, and I bump it with mine—or try to. I manage to miss it. I see double by this point, so it’s no wonder.
“Heya. Wassup?” Damn, my mouth isn’t cooperating. My hands either, I realize, when Rafe easily pulls a glass—empty, I notice—from my lax fingers and sets it on a low table. Has to be low, ’cuz I’m sitting on the floor, my back to the wall, and it’s at eye-level.
Unless I’ve grown bigger. Kinda like the Alice eating that cake in Wonderland. It was in a book I found in one of the foster homes I’d passed through, but then I lost it.
Like I lose everything important in my life.
Did I eat cake? Can’t remember eating anything. I often forget about food. There was a time I tried hard to forget about food, because I didn’t have any, and now I can have it, I keep forgetting about it.
Figures.
“Man, you’re so fucking out of it.” Rafe grumbles as he thrusts a plastic cup into my hand, liquid sloshing inside. “Drink.”
I take a sip and grimace. “What’s this?”
“Water with sugar and salt. Chug it down already. No alcohol poisoning on my shift.” Rafe scowls at me through the blond hair falling in his face.
Second person I managed to piss off tonight, blondes excepted.
“Yessir,” I mumble and down the water in two gulps. I somehow end up with some of it on my T-shirt, and it makes me snort.
“Yo, Jesse.” Another tall form appears behind Rafe, and the Mohawk tells me I’ve drawn Zane’s eye.
Oh shit.
“Damn. Is he as piss-ass drunk as he looks?” Zane rubs a hand over his face, and the look of disappointment on it cuts deep. He’s my mentor, my teacher, the one who took me in.
Then again, feels like tonight everything cuts too deep, like I’m a reopened wound, letting the blades of words sink all the way to the bone.
“I’m okay,” I mutter and push to my feet, holding on to the sofa as the floor tilts. “See?”
“The hell you are.” Zane huffs. “What’s the matter with you, kid?”
It’s always funny how he calls me that, not being any older, but tonight I don’t find it funny.
“Everything’s fine.” Has to be fine, and I was wrong: alcohol isn’t helping me forget and get numb tonight. It rubs into my scabs, reviving every single fucking memory. “Perfect.”
“I’m driving you home,” Rafe says, grabbing my shoulder as I stumble on empty beer bottles. “Come on.”
And I go along. I paste a wide smile on my face and stagger out of the apartment, keeping my gaze straight ahead and my heart lodged somewhere in my throat, telling myself I don’t care what happens, what others think of me and where I will end up tomorrow.
If life has taught me one thing is that it makes no difference if I care, if I try—and fuck the world, anyway.
Chapter Three
Amber
Pre-party, the apartment looked small but cozy and clean. Post-party, it looks like a bomb went off—a bomb filled with beer bottles, plastic cups and, for some reason, multicolored confetti. Probably napkins, though why someone would shred them into tiny pieces is beyond me.
Much in life is beyond me. I’ve long given up trying to understand people. Seriously. Trying is a waste of time. Instead, I let life flow around me, over me, let people brush me by, and do my best to keep my head down and be invisible.
In my experience, attention is a bad, bad thing. It leads to interest, and interest can turn bad more times than not. Avoid interest, avoid attention, and you avoid problems.
