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“Marlow and Raylin, fuuuuck,” Droga says with a chuckle. “Marlow is so head over heels. And she’s messed up. And they have a history from before the Change, not exactly a pretty one, and she went through some dark stuff after the Change that even Ty doesn’t talk about. So now her and Marlow are playing these love-hate games.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“You are like Ty’s favorite person now. He is so happy she’s here. Can’t shut up about how you are his new hero. Well, and Kat. Ty sent a big check to her father.”
Then there’s silence, things we don’t talk about. It’s up to me to bring them up. I’ve held back too much shit before, too many things I didn’t tell people who are now gone.
“I tried to stay away from you after that fire because I thought that you were just like my dad,” I finally say, feeling uneasy, but the booze is doing its job and letting me loose.
Droga turns his head to me.
“After losing my mother and brother,” I continue, not looking at him because I can’t face him but I need to let it out, “I felt alone. You know my dad. He got all weird when my mom died. He didn’t care much about anything but work and power games and women. Definitely not about me. I despised him for that. And when you came around, I swear, I realized one day that I cared about my best friend more than about my own father.”
I think Droga always knew that. That I valued him above all the rich kids I used to keep around—a fucking football team of them and an entire stadium.
“I was so fucking mad after that night you spent with Callie. Like you betrayed me. Like you were turning on me just the way my dad had. So I said, fuck it. I was in a bad mental place. And I overdosed that year, yeah…”
Droga doesn’t say anything, but I feel him shift—I know when he’s uneasy.
“You know what Dad did?” I can’t help but smirk. Maybe that’s why I didn’t grieve him so much—he was an embodiment of a parent who didn’t care. “He sent his assistant to the hospital because he was too busy. And flowers.” I laugh, but it’s a sad laughter. “That was my fucking father, you know? He said afterward that I’m weak for getting so wound up about the people who don’t value me in their life. So I stayed away from you. Pretty pathetic, huh?”
Droga takes a slow gulp from the bottle and loudly smacks his lips. “You know what always bothered me about you, Crone?”
Here we come. “A gazillion things?”
“Just one, actually—it defined everything about you, though—that you find genuine feelings pathetic.”
I stare at the horizon and the ocean, the loud sound of the crashing waves drowning my unease.
“I understood it about you when I met Callie,” he says. “Yeah, I know you gonna smirk right now.”
I catch myself smirking. “I’m not smirking.”
“I thought I was pathetic when I fell in love with her back at Deene. But that’s because you constantly taunted me about it. Like I was a loser because I fell for a girl. And you going behind my back and roping her in didn’t help.”
“Droga—”
“I know, testosterone and all that. We had too many girls around, never cared about them. But after the Change, when Callie came to Zion, I realized that pathetic”—he pauses, letting it sink in—“is having feelings for someone or caring for others and acting like it’s something to be ashamed of. You were like a brother to me at Deene.”
The words make my eyes burn.
“And only once did I see you show genuine feelings—the night in Mexico when you got drunk.”
“Whatever. I was wasted.”
“Stop. Fucking. Brushing it away like it’s nothing!” He raises his voice at me. “Can’t you see? You tried to pretend that the night when you let go and finally talked about your mother and Adam didn’t happen.Thatwas the night that showed you trusted me. And I trustedyou. It meant more than any other night. More than the other stupid shit we did for fun. But you never brought it up again.”
True, though I still have the pictures from that trip in my drawer.
He kicks the sand with the heel of his foot—irritated, I can tell.
“And what made me mad after the Block Party was not the shit that you put Callie through. Not even the fucking accident, though I gotta admit, nothing topped that until the Change.”
I swallow hard and turn to look at him.
He turns to meet my gaze. “What got to me is that you chose not to deal with it or talk about it. You came to the hospitalonceafter the fire—once, Crone—and I was so mad that I sent you away.” His voice is rising, his words are sharper, and so is his stare. But I don’t break the gaze, because he needs to let out, and I need to take it like I should’ve years ago. “Yeah. That was the wrong time to come to me. But after that, Crone, afterall that time, you gave up and acted like you didn’t give a shit. As if admitting you were wrong would’ve somehow made you less than what you were. Like you didn’t want my shitty trauma in your life.”
My heart explodes in shame and guilt at the words. “Not fucking true,” I say quietly and tear my gaze away from him.
