AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I said no, you little prick.”
No.
There’s no fucking way this is happening.
Our eyes lock as we stare at one another, and I already know what he’s thinking before he voices it. I can see the questions he has for me written all over his face. The need to know what the hell I’ve been doing for the last—
“Two years,” he whispers, finishing my thought. “You haven’t been home in two years, Nate. You don’t call or want anyone to come to your games. Your family’s worried sick—”
“Jesus, don’t you get it?” I cut in, grabbing his jaw to shut him up. “I don’t give a fuck, Xavi. I’m done with that town and every motherfucker in it.”
He frowns at that, looking up at me in confusion. “Since when?”
Since you, I think to myself, but I don’t bother saying it out loud. Still, I think he knows the answer, because he winces and tears his eyes away.
After Katy died, I fell off the rails and spent the better part of a month drowning in vodka and fucking everyone in sight. My dad came to me after I fucked the pool boy while his golfing buddies were in the house and told me it was time to cut the shit. I wanted to quit the team—to quit college altogether—but he wasn’t having it. His teenage daughter was in the fucking ground, but life goes on and all that shit. He’d never hit me before, but I earned a back hand to the face for my attitude that day. Then he gave me a choice: be the star he raised me to be or check myself into rehab. I left the house that afternoon without saying goodbye to him. He showed up to my first few games after that, but I wouldn’t talk to him or even acknowledge his presence there, so he eventually gave up trying. I assume he watches the games at home now, but I don’t really give a shit if he does or not.
I’ve spoken to my mom on the phone a few times, but I haven’t seen her in person since the day I left home for good, and I don’t plan on doing so any time soon. That might make me a heartless asshole, but it’s better this way for all of us. I’m not a very good person when I’m around them—when I’m around him.
I haven’t been the same since Xavi took my little sister away from me and ruined my fucking life. Since my parents decided that yeah, Katy might be gone, but keeping up appearances is always most important. Since I became so broken with grief and disgust that I couldn’t even stand to look at them anymore.
It all comes back to him as far as I’m concerned.
Everything is his fault.
And I fucking hate him for it.
Knowing what’s coming, he snatches his jaw out of my hand, trying his hardest to get away from me. Before he can move, I grab him by the collar of his hoodie and punch him again, knocking him back into the side of Frankie’s truck this time. My knuckles are killing me, but I don’t care. I like the burn, especially when it comes from him. It feels like a drug. My first hit in almost two years.
“Don’t even bother walking into this house,” I say as I back up towards the front door. “Get your ass back on that bike, choose another school, and get the fuck out of my life.”
But I already know he’s not about to do any of those things.
Something’s changed in his eyes since I saw him last. I can see it now. Just for a second, he’s the old Xavi again—the one he was before Katy died. The bratty, defiant little bitch who never did a damn thing he was told. The way he’s looking at me…
The kid’s got balls, I’ll give him that.
3
XAVI
The front door closes behind him, and I look away. “Fuck,” I whisper, cupping the back of my neck as I stare at the big iron gates I drove through a little while ago.
I thought I was ready for this, but after seeing him again, after getting my ass kicked again and finding out he had no idea I was coming…
“Fuck,” I repeat, digging my fingers into my throbbing eye sockets.
Maybe this was a mistake.
I should have just gone back to my hole where I belong.
Before I went to rehab three months ago, I was spending most of my time locked away in my bedroom at my mom’s house, blinds and windows closed, lights off. My very own pity party pad for one.
I took a year off after I graduated high school, because everything just felt so meaningless without Katy. It felt wrong at the time, and it still does, coming to the same college we were supposed to go to together. Hawthorne University—an elite campus for spoiled rich kids like ourselves, about an hour’s drive from our hometown. It’s not nearly far enough away if you ask me.
I’m not exactly here by choice, but I’ll admit it didn’t take much to convince me. Because deep down, I know she’d want this for me. She’d want me to do this for her. I never wanted to go—I’m not really the college kid type—but she begged and assured me we’d have the time of our lives. She had it all planned out. We’d live with Nate and Carter in their badass house off campus, whether they liked it or not, and then once they graduated, it would be all ours for our final two years. I eventually agreed because I’d have done anything for her. I’d have followed her off a bridge if she asked me to. She was my best friend. My only fucking friend.
Dropping my ass down on the freezing cold ground, I lean back against the side of my bike and try calling the prick I already tried three times when I first pulled up. He was supposed to meet me here almost an hour ago.
