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It got so bad for him. He was stressed and aggravated by the smallest things. It got to a point where Oscar drove four hours to her college just to see her.
He’d visited her dorm once before, during the beginning of the year when things were okay.
Huge mistake.
Let’s just say that when we stopped by, saw a guy sitting on her bed with his shirt off, and her in only a T-shirt, we all knew she had completely forgotten about Oscar.
She broke him, and there wasn’t shit she could say to make him feel better or a lie she could come up with, because the truth had been shoved right down his throat.
Instead of walking away when he saw her and the other guy, Oscar busted right in and beat the shit out of the guy—the guy who had no clue Oscar even existed.
Oscar was charged for assault, tossed in jail for a month, and because he got so behind, he dropped out of high school. Otto dropped out as well, but it was months later, after they’d lost their home and had to move into an apartment with their mother.
They needed jobs. They needed money.
Since they’d been working they were better now. Aunt Jane was better.
That’s why I’m sure when people see or think of us, they think of us as low-life fighting dropouts with no purpose.
The truth is, people just didn’t know who we were. They were afraid of us because we instilled that fear in them whenever they saw us fight.
We fought so hard to run away from our own fears that the only option was to unleash it on anyone that stood in our way.
People in this city knew not to fuck with us, to stay away. But when you get girls like Jenny, and Oscar gets someone like Kylie, it changes things.
We know we don’t need it, but we can’t help but want it. We can’t help but wonder…we can’t help but try again—work on ourselves as much as we can, even if that means losing parts of ourselves.
But sometimes the lowest of the low don’t deserve something that good.
Oscar and I both knew those girls weren’t trying to buy their way in. If that was the case, we wouldn’t still be around. And I wouldn’t have been washing my balls just to make sure I smelled nice enough to be in her presence.
We’d become so closed off that any sign of kindness or care threw us the fuck off. We ran with most of it, but when it came down to the wire—scheduling meet-ups and lunches and dates—it was a hard pill for us to swallow.
It was hard because it gave us a purpose.
And…maybe we didn’t want purpose.
Because purpose meant we had to care. Purpose meant we had to give it all that we had. Purpose meant we had to try harder…but trying harder wasn’t what we wanted.
Because it’s easier to not care at all.
It’s easier to pretend nothing matters.
It’s easier because it doesn’t hurt when something drastic ends up happening.
Like in my case, losing my mother, or in their case, watching her get abused by a man you thought would protect both her and you.
The same applied to me too… but unlike Aunt Jane, Mom didn’t make it out alive.
Chapter 14
Jenny
Drumming my fingers on the table, I took a look around the busy, familiar restaurant. I put most surveillance on the waiting area by the door, waiting for that familiar presence.
I was at Buckley’s again.
Drake should’ve been here by now.
For the past sixteen hours I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that damn kiss in the parking lot. I was too afraid to go to sleep, just in case I didn’t get the chance to dream about it.
I woke up with a big, goofy smile on my face, took a long shower, and then I read a romance novel I’d been dying to get my hands on for months.
It only took me four hours to finish it. When I was done, that’s when I decided to text Drake… because even while reading, I couldn’t stop picturing him.
That book boyfriend I was devouring every page of? I was picturing Drake during the whole damn thing. Whenever the book boyfriend said something sweet or just straight up sexy, I sighed and pictured those words coming out of Drake’s mouth with his deep, husky voice and his always-serious face.
Trust me, it wasn’t very hard for me to imagine.
He said he would meet me in an hour at this place again—the place we shared our first kiss. It’d been over an hour now. Maybe he got caught up with something.
I sighed as I picked up my not-so-cold chocolate milkshake and took a drawn out sip. Just as I placed the glass down, the bell above the door chimed and I looked over.
