AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Where are we going?”
“Penthouse.”
I frown. “But what about Xander?”
“He’s not going to the arcade anymore. He’s at home, and Akara said he’s not ready to see me.”
I sink in the seat. “I didn’t think he’d take it this badly.”
“Hopefully he just needs time.”
Hopefully.But I can see it’s also eating at Donnelly.
* * *
Donnelly shutsoff the ignition in the parking deck of the apartment complex. Our section of the deck is gated with floor-to-ceiling metal chain-link fencing and a passcode. Jane’s baby blue Land Rover is parked beside Sulli’s forest-green Jeep, so I know they’re home.
Still, Donnelly and I don’t hurry to exit the security vehicle. It’s dark and quiet, and I pretend it’s nighttime. Alone with him.
“Was it hard seeing him this week?” I ask, glancing over as Donnelly places a hand on the back of my headrest. “Your dad?” I finally muster the courage to ask him about his family.
Maybe because I’m less afraid of the discomfort. I’m more afraid of never knowing the depth of what’s happening with Donnelly, and I can’t really be there for him if I’m in the dark.
Now, alone and in the sanctuary of the car, it just feels like the right time.
“Yeah, it’s been hard,” he breathes. “It’s weird too.” His brows pinch, staring off. “Almost like stepping back in time. I was never close,closewith him. He was too high for that, but he kept bringing up memories.” Donnelly shakes his head, his chest falling with a heavy breath. “I have to catch myself not making excuses for him, for my mom.”
“What do you mean?”
He cradles my gaze for a fragile beat. “They werebabieshaving a baby when they had me. Just fourteen.”
It knocks air out of my lungs. “They werefourteen?”
He nods.
Slow realizations wash over me. “That’s why your dad looked so young when you were a little kid…in the picture you showed me.”
“Yeah. It’s easy to say,oh they were too young to be parents. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. They were too poor. They didn’t have good role models.Then I start opening my heart to them, and it always ends the same. They disappoint. They never change. So I try not to make those same excuses.”
My parents are addicts too, but Donnelly hasn’t experienced sober parents. And I’ve never experienced parents off the path of recovery.
I’ve never had to make big excuses for my mom and dad. For one, they always take full responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made and the people they’ve hurt in the past. For the other, I never grew up with them in the worst of their addictions.
“I think we’re all backwards,” I tell him softly. “With everything you’ve gone through, you should be the real-life cynic. I should be the one infecting you with hope.”
“I’d still be in South Philly, in the same apartment, never meeting Farrow, never meeting you if I were the real-life cynic,” Donnelly says. “And I don’t believe you’ve been hopeless, sad alien.” His voice lifts my morose gaze, and there it is—lightglimmering inside him. “You’ve just been beat down one too many times. Everyone has a breaking point.”
“Even you?” I whisper.
He searches my gaze again. “The way you look at me, Luna…” He seems overwhelmed.
“How am I looking at you?” I’m trapped in his orbit, not wanting to be set loose.
“I’m the hero of your story.” His voice drops to the same hushed sound as mine. “I don’t know if anyone has ever placed me there, but one of the things I’m most scared of is disappointing you.”
I shake my head slowly, then more hurriedly. My eyes burn. “You won’t.”
He’s unblinking too as his gaze reaches into me. “I wanna be your hero—in every story you’ll ever write about me and you. I want that, but the honest truth is that…I’m not built to withstand it all. And I don’t know my exact breaking point yet, ‘cause I don’t really know how much I can take. I just know it’s a lot.”
